THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NSW  YORK  •    BOSTON  -   CHICAGO  -   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •   BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE 
TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 


BY 

JACK  LONDON 

Author  of  "The  Call  of  the  Wild,"  "The  Strength 
of  the  Strong,"  "The  Valley  of  the  Moon" 


Sforo  fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1916 


All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,    1911 

BY  THE  RED  BOOK  CORPORATION 
BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

BY  THE  CENTURY  COMPANY 

BY  THE  CURRIER  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

BY  THE  ABBOTT  &  BRIGGS  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1912 
BY  THE  CURRIER  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1914 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1916 
BY  JACK  LONDON 


Set  up  ani  electrotyped.     PuLUbhed,  September,  1916. 

.at 


i 

.    W//V) 

CONTENTS 


PAGE 

BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN i 

THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS 63 

TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD 87 

THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY 108 

THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER 136 

THE  FIRST  POET 166 

FINIS 184 

THE  END  OF  THE  STORY 221 


345184 


THE 
TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

I 

E.W,  order,  and  restraint  had  carved  Fred 
erick  Travers'  face.  It  was  the  strong, 
firm  face  of  one  used  to  power  and  who  had 
used  power  with  wisdom  and  discretion.  Clean 
living  had  made  the  healthy  skin,  and  the 
lines  graved  in  it  were  honest  lines.  Hard 
and  devoted  work  had  left  its  wholesome  handi 
work,  that  was  all.  Every  feature  of  the  man 
told  the  same  story,  from  the  clear  blue  of  the 
eyes  to  the  full  head  of  hair,  light  brown, 
touched  with  grey,  and  smoothly  parted  and 
drawn  straight  across  above  the  strong-domed 
forehead.  He  was  a  seriously  groomed  man, 
and  the  light  summer  business  suit  no  more  than 
befitted  his  alert  years,  while  it  did  not  shout 


2        TI-K  TURTLES. OF  TASMAN 

aloud  that  its  possessor  was  likewise  the  posses 
sor  of  numerous  millions  of  dollars  and  prop 
erty. 

For  Frederick  Travers  hated  ostentation. 
The  machine  that  waited  outside  for  him  under 
the  porte-cochere  was  sober  black.  It  was  the 
most  expensive  machine  in  the  county,  yet  he  did 
not  care  to  flaunt  its  price  or  horse-power  in  a 
red  flare  across  the  landscape,  which  also  was 
mostly  his,  from  the  sand  dunes  and  the  ever 
lasting  beat  of  the  Pacific  breakers,  across  the 
fat  bottomlands  and  upland  pastures,  to  the  far 

summits  clad  with  redwood  forest  and  wreathed 

t 

in  fog  and  cloud. 

A  rustle  of  skirts  caused  him  to  look  over  his 
shoulder.  Just  the  faintest  hint  of  irritation 
showed  in  his  manner.  Not  that  his  daughter 
was  the  object,  however.  Whatever  it  was,  it 
seemed  to  lie  on  the  desk  before  him. 

'  What  is  that  outlandish  name  again?"  she 
asked.  "  I  know  I  shall  never  remember  it. 
See,  IVe  brought  a  pad  to  write  it  down." 

Her  voice  was  low  and  cool,  and  she  was  a 
tall,  well-formed,  clear-skinned  young  woman. 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN       3 

In  her  voice  and  complacence  she,  too,  showed 
the  drill-marks  of  order  and  restraint. 

Frederick  Travers  scanned  the  signature  of 
one  of  two  letters  on  the  desk.  "  Bronislawa 
Plaskoweitzkaia  Travers,"  he  read;  then  spelled 
the  difficult  first  portion,  letter  by  letter,  while 
his  daughter  wrote  it  down. 

"  Now,  Mary,"  he  added,  "  remember  Tom 
was  always  harum  scarum,  and  you  must  make 
allowances  for  this  daughter  of  his.  Her  very 
name  is  —  ah  —  disconcerting.  I  haven't  seen 
him  for  years,  and  as  for  her  ..."  A  shrug 
epitomised  his  apprehension.  He  smiled  with 
an  effort  at  wit.  "  Just  the  same,  they're  as 
much  your  family  as  mine.  If  he  is  my  brother, 
he  is  your  uncle.  And  if  she's  my  niece,  you're 
both  cousins." 

Mary  nodded.  "  Don't  worry,  father.  I'll 
be  nice  to  her,  poor  thing.  What  nationality 
was  her  mother?  —  to  get  such  an  awful 
name." 

"  I  don't  know.  Russian,  or  Polish,  or  Span 
ish,  or  something.  It  was  just  like  Tom.  She 
was  an  actress  or  singer  —  I  don't  remember. 


4       THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

They  met  in  Buenos  Ayres.  It  was  an  elope 
ment.  Her  husband — " 

"  Then  she  was  already  married!  " 

Mary's  dismay  was  unfeigned  and  spontane 
ous,  and  her  father's  irritation  grew  more  pro 
nounced.  He  had  not  meant  that.  It  had 
slipped  out. 

"  There  was  a  divorce  afterward,  of  course. 
I  never  knew  the  details.  Her  mother  died  out 
in  China  —  no;  in  Tasmania.  It  was  in  China 
that  Tom  — "  His  lips  shut  with  almost  a 
snap.  He  was  not  going  to  make  any  more 
slips.  Mary  waited,  then  turned  to  the  door, 
where  she  paused. 

"  I've  given  her  the  rooms  over  the  rose 
court,"  she  said.  "  And  I'm  going  now  to  take 
a  last  look." 

Frederick  Travers  turned  back  to  the  desk, 
as  if  to  put  the  letters  away,  changed  his  mind, 
and  slowly  and  ponderingly  reread  them. 

"Dear  Fred: 

"  It's  been  a  long  time  since  I  was  so  near  to  the 
old  home,  and  I'd  like  to  take  a  run  up.  Unfor- 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN       5 

tunately,  I  played  ducks  and  drakes  with  my  Yucatan 
project  —  I  think  I  wrote  about  it  —  and  I'm  broke 
as  usual.  Could  you  advance  me  funds  for  the  run? 
I'd  like  to  arrive  first  class.  Polly  is  with  me,  you 
know.  I  wonder  how  you  two  will  get  along. 

"  TOM. 

"  P.  S.  If  it  doesn't  bother  you  too  much,  send 
it  along  next  mail." 

"Dear  Uncle  Fred": 

the  other  letter  ran,  in  what  seemed  to  him  a 

strange,  foreign-taught,  yet  distinctly  feminine 

hand. 

"  Dad  doesn't  know  I  am  writing  this.  He  told 
me  what  he  said  to  you.  It  is  not  true.  He  is  com 
ing  home  to  die.  He  doesn't  know  it,  but  I've  talked 
with  the  doctors.  And  he'll  have  to  come  home,  for 
we  have  no  money.  We're  in  a  stuffy  little  board 
ing  house,  and  it  is  not  the  place  for  Dad.  He's 
helped  other  persons  all  his  life,  and  now  is  the  time 
to  help  him.  He  didn't  play  ducks  and  drakes  in 
Yucatan.  I  was  with  him,  and  I  know.  He  dropped 
all  he  had  there,  and  he  was  robbed.  He  can't  play 
the  business  game  against  New  Yorkers.  That  ex 
plains  it  all,  and  I  am  proud  he  can't. 

"  He  always  laughs  and  says  I'll  never  be  able  to 


6       THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

get  along  with  you.     But  I   don't  agree  with  him. 
Besides,  I've  never  seen  a  really,  truly  blood  relative 
in  my  life,  and  there's  your  daughter.     Think  of  it! 
—  a  real  live  cousin ! 
"  In  anticipation, 
"  Your  niece, 
"  BRONISLAWA   PLASKOWEITZKAIA  TRAVERS. 

"  P.  S.  You'd  better  telegraph  the  money,  or  you 
won't  see  Dad  at  all.  He  doesn't  know  how  sick  he 
is,  and  if  he  meets  any  of  his  old  friends  he'll  be  off 
and  away  on  some  wild  goose  chase.  He's  beginning 
to  talk  Alaska.  Says  it  will  get  the  fever  out  of  his 
bones.  Please  know  that  we  must  pay  the  boarding 
house,  or  else  we'll  arrive  without  luggage. 

"  B.  P.  T." 

Frederick  Travers  opened  the  door  of  a 
large,  built-in  safe  and  methodically  put  the  let 
ters  away  in  a  compartment  labelled  "  Thomas 
Travers." 

"  Poor  Tom!  Poor  Tom!"  he  sighed 
aloud. 


II 

THE  big  motor  car  waited  at  the  station, 
and  Frederick  Travers  thrilled  as  he  al 
ways  thrilled  to  the  distant  locomotive  whistle 
of  the  train  plunging  down  the  valley  of  Isaac 
Travers  River.  First  of  all  westering  white- 
men,  had  Isaac  Travers  gazed  on  that  splendid 
valley,  its  salmon-laden  waters,  its  rich  bottoms, 
and  its  virgin  forest  slopes.  Having  seen,  he 
had  grasped  and  never  let  go.  "  Land-poor,1' 
they  had  called  him  in  the  mid-settler  period. 
But  that  had  been  in  the  days  when  the  placers 
petered  out,  when  there  were  no  wagon  roads 
nor  tugs  to  draw  in  sailing  vessels  across  the 
perilous  bar,  and  when  his  lonely  grist  mill  had 
been  run  under  armed  guards  to  keep  the  ma 
rauding  Klamaths  off  while  wheat  was  ground. 
Like  father,  like  son,  and  what  Isaac  Travers 
had  grasped,  Frederick  Travers  had  held.  It 
had  been  the  same  tenacity  of  hold.  Both  had 

7 


8        THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

been  far-visioned.  Both  had  foreseen  the 
transformation  of  the  utter  West,  the  coming  of 
the  railroad,  and  the  building  of  the  new  empire 
on  the  Pacific  shore. 

Frederick  Travers  thrilled,  too,  at  the  loco 
motive  whistle,  because,  more  than  any  man's, 
it  was  his  railroad.  His  father  had  died  still 
striving  to  bring  the  railroad  in  across  the  moun 
tains  that  averaged  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
to  the  mile.  He,  Frederick,  had  brought  it  in. 
He  had  sat  up  nights  over  that  railroad; 
bought  newspapers,  entered  politics,  and  sub 
sidised  party  machines;  and  he  had  made  pil 
grimages,  more  than  once,  at  his  own  expense, 
to  the  railroad  chiefs  of  the  East.  While  all 
the  county  knew  how  many  miles  of  his  land 
were  crossed  by  the  right  of  way,  none  of  the 
county  guessed  nor  dreamed  the  number  of  his 
dollars  which  had  gone  into  guaranties  and  rail 
road  bonds.  He  had  done  much  for  his  county, 
and  the  railroad  was  his  last  and  greatest 
achievement,  the  capstone  of  the  Travers'  ef 
fort,  the  momentous  and  marvellous  thing  that 
had  been  brought  about  just  yesterday.  It  had 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN       9 

been  running  two  years,  and,  highest  proof  of 
all  of  his  judgment,  dividends  were  in  sight. 
And  farther  reaching  reward  was  in  sight.  It 
was  written  in  the  books  that  the  next  Governor 
of  California  was  to  be  spelled,  Frederick  A. 
Travers. 

Twenty  years  had  passed  since  he  had  seen 
his  elder  brother,  and  then  it  had  been  after  a 
gap  of  ten  years.  He  remembered  that  night 
well.  Tom  was  the  only  man  who  dared  run 
the  bar  in  the  dark,  and  that  last  time,  between 
nightfall  and  the  dawn,  with  a  southeaster 
breezing  up,  he  had  sailed  his  schooner  in  and 
out  again.  There  had  been  no  warning  of  his 
coming  —  a  clatter  of  hoofs  at  midnight,  a 
lathered  horse  in  the  stable,  and  Tom  had  ap 
peared,  the  salt  of  the  sea  on  his  face  as  his 
mother  attested.  An  hour  only  he  remained, 
and  on  a  fresh  horse  was  gone,  while  rain 
squalls  rattled  upon  the  windows  and  the  rising 
wind  moaned  through  the  redwoods,  the  mem 
ory  of  his  visit  a  whiff,  sharp  and  strong,  from 
the  wild  outer  world.  A  week  later,  sea-ham 
mered  and  bar-bound  for  that  time,  had  arrived 


io     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

the  revenue  cutter  Bear,  and  there  had  been  a 
column  of  conjecture  in  the  local  paper,  hints  of 
a  heavy  landing  of  opium  and  of  a  vain  quest 
for  the  mysterious  schooner  Halcyon.  Only 
Fred  and  his  mother,  and  the  several  house 
Indians,  knew  of  the  stiffened  horse  in  the  barn 
and  of  the  devious  way  it  was  afterward 
smuggled  back  to  the  fishing  village  on  the 
beach. 

Despite  those  twenty  years,  it  was  the  same 
old  Tom  Travers  that  alighted  from  the  Pull 
man.  To  his  brother's  eyes,  he  did  not  look 
sick.  Older  he  was  of  course.  The  Panama 
hat  did  not  hide  the  grey  hair,  and  though  in 
definably  hinting  of  shrunkenness,  the  broad 
shoulders  were  still  broad  and  erect.  As  for 
the  young  woman  with  him,  Frederick  Travers 
experienced  an  immediate  shock  of  distaste. 
He  felt  it  vitally,  yet  vaguely.  It  was  a  chal 
lenge  and  a  mock,  yet  he  could  not  name  nor 
place  the  source  of  it.  It  might  have  been  the 
dress,  of  tailored  linen  and  foreign  cut,  the 
shirtwaist,  with  its  daring  stripe,  the  black  wil- 
fulness  of  the  hair,  or  the  flaunt  of  poppies  on 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     n 

the  large  straw  hat  or  it  might  have  been  the 
flash  and  colour  of  her  —  the  black  eyes  and 
brows,  the  flame  of  rose  in  the  cheeks,  the  white 
of  the  even  teeth  that  showed  too  readily.  "  A 
spoiled  child,"  was  his  thought,  but  he  had  no 
time  to  analyse,  for  his  brother's  hand  was  in  his 
and  he  was  making  his  niece's  acquaintance. 

There  it  was  again.  She  flashed  and  talked 
like  her  colour,  and  she  talked  with  her  hands  as 
well.  He  could  not  avoid  noting  the  smallness 
of  them.  They  were  absurdly  small,  and  his 
eyes  went  to  her  feet  to  make  the  same  discov 
ery.  Quite  oblivious  of  the  curious  crowd  on 
the  station  platform,  she  had  intercepted  his  at 
tempt  to  lead  to  the  motor  car  and  had  ranged 
the  brothers  side  by  side.  Tom  had  been 
laughingly  acquiescent,  but  his  younger  brother 
was  ill  at  ease,  too  conscious  of  the  many  eyes 
of  his  townspeople.  He  knew  only  the  old 
Puritan  way.  Family  displays  were  for  the 
privacy  of  the  family,  not  for  the  public.  He 
was  glad  she  had  not  attempted  to  kiss  him.  It 
was  remarkable  she  had  not.  Already  he  ap 
prehended  anything  of  her. 


12     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

She  embraced  them  and  penetrated  them  with 
sun-warm  eyes  that  seemed  to  see  through  them, 
and  over  them,  and  all  about  them. 

"  You're  really  brothers,"  she  cried,  her 
hands  flashing  with  her  eyes.  "  Anybody  can 
see  it.  And  yet  there  is  a  difference  —  I  don't 
know.  I  can't  explain." 

In  truth,  with  a  tact  that  exceeded  Frederick 
Travers'  farthest  disciplined  forbearance,  she 
did  not  dare  explain.  Her  wide  artist-eyes  had 
seen  and  sensed  the  whole  trenchant  and  essen 
tial  difference.  Alike  they  looked,  of  the  un 
mistakable  same  stock,  their  features  reminiscent 
of  a  common  origin;  and  there  resemblance 
ceased.  Tom  was  three  inches  taller,  and  well- 
greyed  was  the  long,  Viking  moustache.  His 
was  the  same  eagle-like  nose  as  his  brother's, 
save  that  it  was  more  eagle-like,  while  the  blue 
eyes  were  pronouncedly  so.  The  lines  of  the 
face  were  deeper,  the  cheek-bones  higher,  the 
hollows  larger,  the  weather-beat  darker.  It 
was  a  volcanic  face.  There  had  been  fire  there, 
and  the  fire  still  lingered.  Around  the  corners 
of  the  eyes  were  more  laughter-wrinkles  and  in 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     13 

the  eyes  themselves  a  promise  of  deadlier  seri 
ousness  than  the  younger  brother  possessed. 
Frederick  was  bourgeois  in  his  carriage,  but  in 
Tom's  was  a  certain  careless  ease  and  distinc 
tion.  It  was  the  same  pioneer  blood  of  Isaac 
Travers  in  both  men,  but  it  had  been  retorted  in 
widely  different  crucibles.  Frederick  repre 
sented  the  straight  and  expected  line  of  descent. 
His  brother  expressed  a  vast  and  intangible 
something  that  was  unknown  in  the  Travers 
stock.  And  it  was  all  this  that  the  black-eyed 
girl  saw  and  knew  on  the  instant.  All  that  had 
been  inexplicable  in  the  two  men  and  their  re 
lationship  cleared  up  in  the  moment  she  saw 
them  side  by  side. 

"  Wake  me  up,"  Tom  was  saying.  "  I  can't 
believe  I  arrived  on  a  train.  And  the  popula 
tion?  There  were  only  four  thousand  thirty 
years  ago." 

"  Sixty  thousand  now,"  was  the  other's  an 
swer.  "  And  increasing  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
Want  to  spin  around  for  a  look  at  the  city? 
There's  plenty  of  time." 

As  they  sped  along  the  broad,  well-paved 


i4     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

streets,  Tom  persisted  in  his  Rip  Van  Winkle 
pose.  The  waterfront  perplexed  him.  Where 
he  had  once  anchored  his  sloop  in  a  dozen  feet 
of  water,  he  found  solid  land  and  railroad 
yards,  with  wharves  and  shipping  still  farther 
out. 

"  Hold  on!  Stop!  "  he  cried,  a  few  blocks 
on,  looking  up  at  a  solid  business  block. 
"Where  is  this,  Fred?" 

"  Fourth  and  Travers  —  don't  you  remem 
ber?" 

Tom  stood  up  and  gazed  around,  trying  to 
discern  the  anciently  familiar  configuration  of 
the  land  under  its  clutter  of  buildings. 

"  I  ...  I  think  .  .  ."  he  began  hesitantly. 
"  No ;  by  George,  I'm  sure  of  it.  We  used 
to  hunt  cottontails  over  that  ground,  and 
shoot  blackbirds  in  the  brush.  And  there, 
where  the  bank  building  is,  was  a  pond."  He 
turned  to  Polly.  "  I  built  my  first  raft  there, 
and  got  my  first  taste  of  the  sea." 

"  Heaven  knows  how  many  gallons  of  it," 
Frederick  laughed,  nodding  to  the  chauffeur. 
"  They  rolled  you  on  a  barrel,  I  remember." 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     15 

"Oh!  More!"  Polly  cried,  clapping  her 
hands. 

"  There's  the  park,"  Frederick  pointed  out  a 
little  later,  indicating  a  mass  of  virgin  redwoods 
on  the  first  dip  of  the  bigger  hills. 

"  Father  shot  three  grizzlies  there  one  after 
noon,'*  was  Tom's  remark. 

"  I  presented  forty  acres  of  it  to  the  city," 
Frederick  went  on.  "  Father  bought  the 
quarter  section  for  a  dollar  an  acre  from 
Leroy." 

Tom  nodded,  and  the  sparkle  and  flash  in  his 
eyes,  like  that  of  his  daughter,  were  unlike  any 
thing  that  ever  appeared  in  his  brother's  eyes. 

'  Yes,"  he  affirmed,  "  Leroy,  the  negro 
squawman.  I  remember  the  time  he  carried 
you  and  me  on  his  back  to  Alliance,  the  night 
the  Indians  burned  the  ranch.  Father  stayed 
behind  and  fought." 

"  But  he  couldn't  save  the  grist  mill.  It  was 
a  serious  setback  to  him." 

"  Just  the  same  he  nailed  four  Indians." 

In  Polly's  eyes  now  appeared  the  flash  and 
sparkle. 


1 6     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  An  Indian-fighter !  "  she  cried.  "  Tell  me 
about  him." 

'  Tell  her  about  Travers  Ferry,"  Tom  said. 

'  That's  a  ferry  on  the  Klamath  River  on 
the  way  to  Orleans  Bar  and  Siskiyou.  There 
was  great  packing  into  the  diggings  in  those 
days,  and,  among  other  things,  father  had 
made  a  location  there.  There  was  rich  bench 
farming  land,  too.  He  built  a  suspension 
bridge  —  wove  the  cables  on  the  spot  with 
sailors  and  materials  freighted  in  from  the 
coast.  It  cost  him  twenty  thousand  dollars. 
The  first  day  it  was  open,  eight  hundred  mules 
crossed  at  a  dollar  a  head,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
toll  for  foot  and  horse.  That  night  the  river 
rose.  The  bridge  was  one  hundred  and  forty 
feet  above  low  water  mark.  Yet  the  freshet 
rose  higher  than  that,  and  swept  the  bridge 
away.  He'd  have  made  a  fortune  there  other 


wise." 


"  That  wasn't  it  at  all,"  Tom  blurted  out  im 
patiently.  "  It  was  at  Travers  Ferry  that 
father  and  old  Jacob  Vance  were  caught  by  a 
war  party  of  Mad  River  Indians.  Old  Jacob 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     17 

was  killed  right  outside  the  door  of  the  log 
cabin.  Father  dragged  the  body  inside  and 
stood  the  Indians  off  for  a  week.  Father  was 
some  shot.  He  buried  Jacob  under  the  cabin 
floor." 

"  I  still  run  the  ferry,"  Frederick  went  on, 
"  though  there  isn't  so  much  travel  as  in  the  old 
days.  I  freight  by  wagon-road  to  the  Reserva 
tion,  and  then  mule-back  on  up  the  Klamath  and 
clear  in  to  the  forks  of  Little  Salmon.  I  have 
twelve  stores  on  that  chain  now,  a  stage-line  to 
the  Reservation,  and  a  hotel  there.  Quite  a 
tourist  trade  is  beginning  to  pick  up." 

And  the  girl,  with  curious  brooding  eyes, 
looked  from  brother  to  brother  as  they  so  dif 
ferently  voiced  themselves  and  life. 

"  Ay,  he  was  some  man,  father  was,"  Tom 
murmured. 

There  was  a  drowsy  note  in  his  speech  that 
drew  a  quick  glance  of  anxiety  from  her.  The 
machine  had  turned  into  the  cemetery,  and  now 
halted  before  a  substantial  vault  on  the  crest  of 
the  hill. 

"  I  thought  you'd  like  to  see  it,"  Frederick 


1 8     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

was  saying.  "  I  built  that  mausoleum  myself, 
most  of  it  with  my  own  hands.  Mother  wanted 
it.  The  estate  was  dreadfully  encumbered. 
The  best  bid  I  could  get  out  of  the  contractors 
was  eleven  thousand.  I  did  it  myself  for  a 
little  over  eight." 

"  Must  have  worked  nights,"  Tom  mur 
mured  admiringly  and  more  sleepily  than  be 
fore. 

"  I  did,  Tom,  I  did.  Many  a  night  by  lan 
tern-light.  I  was  so  busy.  I  was  reconstruct 
ing  the  water  works  then  —  the  artesian  wells 
had  failed  —  and  mother's  eyes  were  troubling 
her.  [You  remember —  cataract  —  I  wrote  you. 
She  was  too  weak  to  travel,  and  I  brought  the 
specialists  up  from  San  Francisco.  Oh,  my 
hands  were  full.  I  was  just  winding  up  the  dis 
astrous  affairs  of  the  steamer  line  father  had  es 
tablished  to  San  Francisco,  and  I  was  keeping 
up  the  interest  on  mortgages  to  the  tune  of  one 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars." 

A  soft  stertorous  breathing  interrupted  him. 
Tom,  chin  on  chest,  was  asleep.  Polly,  with  a 
significant  look,  caught  her  uncle's  eye.  Then 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     19 

her  father,  after  an  uneasy  restless  movement, 
lifted  drowsy  lids. 

"  Deuced  warm  day,"  he  said  with  a  bright 
apologetic  laugh.  "  I've  been  actually  asleep. 
Aren't  we  near  home?  " 

Frederick  nodded  to  the  chauffeur,  and  the 
car  rolled  on. 


Ill 

fTlHE  house  that  Frederick  Travers  had  built 
1  when  his  prosperity  came,  was  large  and 
costly,  sober  and  comfortable,  and  with  no  more 
pretence  than  was  naturally  attendant  on  the 
finest  country  home  in  the  county.  Its  atmos 
phere  was  just  the  sort  that  he  and  his  daughter 
would  create.  But  in  the  days  that  followed 
his  brother's  home-coming,  all  this  was  changed. 
Gone  was  the  subdued  and  ordered  repose. 
Frederick  was  neither  comfortable  nor  happy. 
There  was  an  unwonted  flurry  of  life  and  viola 
tion  of  sanctions  and  traditions.  Meals  were 
irregular  and  protracted,  and  there  were  mid 
night  chafing-dish  suppers  and  bursts  of  laugh 
ter  at  the  most  inappropriate  hours. 

Frederick  was  abstemious.  A  glass  of  wine 
at  dinner  was  his  wildest  excess.  Three  cigars 
a  day  he  permitted  himself,  and  these  he 
smoked  either  on  the  broad  veranda  or  in  the 

20 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     21 

smoking  room.  What  else  was  a  smoking  room 
for?  Cigarettes  he  detested.  Yet  his  brother 
was  ever  rolling  thin,  brown-paper  cigarettes 
and  smoking  them  wherever  he  might  happen 
to  be.  A  litter  of  tobacco  crumbs  was  always 
to  be  found  in  the  big  easy  chair  he  frequented 
and  among  the  cushions  of  the  window-seats. 
Then  there  were  the  cocktails.  Brought  up 
under  the  stern  tutelage  of  Isaac  and  Eliza 
Travers,  Frederick  looked  upon  liquor  in  the 
house  as  an  abomination.  Ancient  cities  had 
been  smitten  by  God's  wrath  for  just  such  prac 
tices.  Before  lunch  and  dinner,  Tom,  aided 
and  abetted  by  Polly,  mixed  an  endless  variety 
of  drinks,  she  being  particularly  adept  with 
strange  swivel-stick  concoctions  learned  at  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  To  Frederick,  at  such  times, 
it  seemed  that  his  butler's  pantry  and  dining 
room  had  been  turned  into  bar-rooms.  When 
he  suggested  this,  under  a  facetious  show,  Tom 
proclaimed  that  when  he  made  his  pile  he  would 
build  a  liquor  cabinet  in  every  living  room  of 
his  house. 

And  there  were  more  young  men  at  the  house 


22      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

than  formerly,  and  they  helped  in  disposing  of 
the  cocktails.  Frederick  would  have  liked  to 
account  in  that  manner  for  their  presence,  but 
he  knew  better.  His  brother  and  his  brother's 
daughter  did  what  he  and  Mary  had  failed  to 
do.  They  were  the  magnets.  Youth  and  joy 
and  laughter  drew  to  them.  The  house  was 
lively  with  young  life.  Ever,  day  and  night, 
the  motor  cars  honked  up  and  down  the 
gravelled  drives.  There  were  picnics  and  ex 
peditions  in  the  summer  weather,  moonlight 
sails  on  the  bay,  starts  before  dawn  or  home 
comings  at  midnight,  and  often,  of  nights,  the 
many  bedrooms  were  filled  as  they  had  never 
been  before.  Tom  must  cover  all  his  boyhood 
ramblings,  catch  trout  again  on  Bull  Creek, 
shoot  quail  over  Walcott's  Prairie,  get  a  deer 
on  Round  Mountain.  That  deer  was  a  cause 
of  pain  and  shame  to  Frederick.  What  if  it 
was  closed  season?  Tom  had  triumphantly 
brought  home  the  buck  and  gleefully  called  it 
sidehill-salmon  when  it  was  served  and  eaten 
at  Frederick's  own  table. 

They  had  clambakes  at  the  head  of  the  bay 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     23 

and  musselbakes  down  by  the  roaring  surf;  and 
Tom  told  shamelessly  of  the  Halcyon,  and  of 
the  run  of  contraband,  and  asked  Frederick  be 
fore  them  all  how  he  had  managed  to  smuggle 
the  horse  back  to  the  fishermen  without  dis 
covery.  All  the  young  men  were  in  the  con 
spiracy  with  Polly  to  pamper  Tom  to  his  heart's 
desire.  And  Frederick  heard  the  true  inward 
ness  of  the  killing  of  the  deer;  of  its  purchase 
from  the  overstocked  Golden  Gate  Park;  of  its 
crated  carriage  by  train,  horse-team  and  mule- 
back  to  the  fastnesses  of  Round  Mountain; 
of  Tom  falling  asleep  beside  the  deer-run  the 
first  time  it  was  driven  by;  of  the  pursuit  by  the 
young  men,  the  jaded  saddle  horses,  the  scram 
bles  and  the  falls,  and  the  roping  of  it  at  Burnt 
Ranch  Clearing;  and,  finally,  of  the  triumphant 
culmination,  when  it  was  driven  past  a  second 
time  and  Tom  had  dropped  it  at  fifty  yards. 
To  Frederick  there  was  a  vague  hurt  in  it  all. 
When  had  such  consideration  been  shown  him? 
There  were  days  when  Tom  could  not  go  out, 
postponements  of  outdoor  frolics,  when,  still  the 
centre,  he  sat  and  drowsed  in  the  big  chair?  wak- 


24     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

ing,  at  times,  in  that  unexpected  queer,  bright 
way  of  his,  to  roll  a  cigarette  and  call  for  his 
ukulele  —  a  sort  of  miniature  guitar  of  Portu 
guese  invention.  Then,  with  strumming  and 
tumtuming,  the  live  cigarette  laid  aside  to  the 
imminent  peril  of  polished  wood,  his  full  bari 
tone  would  roll  out  in  South  Sea  hulas  and 
sprightly  French  and  Spanish  songs. 

One,  in  particular,  had  pleased  Frederick  at 
first.  The  favourite  song  of  a  Tahitian  king, 
Tom  explained  —  the  last  of  the  Pomares,  who 
had  himself  composed  it  and  was  wont  to  lie 
on  his  mats  by  the  hour  singing  it.  It  consisted 
of  the  repetition  of  a  few  syllables.  "  E  men 
ru  ru  a  van"  it  ran,  and  that  was  all  of  it,  sung 
in  a  stately,  endless,  ever-varying  chant,  accom 
panied  by  solemn  chords  from  the  ukelele. 
Polly  took  great  joy  in  teaching  it  to  her  uncle, 
but  when,  himself  questing  for  some  of  this  gen 
ial  flood  of  life  that  bathed  about  his  brother, 
Frederick  essayed  the  song,  he  noted  suppressed 
glee  on  the  part  of  his  listeners,  which  increased, 
through  giggles  and  snickers,  to  a  great  out 
burst  of  laughter.  To  his  disgust  and  dismay, 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     25 

he  learned  that  the  simple  phrase  he  had  re 
peated  and  repeated  was  nothing  else  than  "  I 
am  so  drunk."  He  had  been  made  a  fool  of. 
Over  and  over,  solemnly  and  gloriously,  he, 
Frederick  Travers,  had  announced  how  drunk 
he  was.  After  that,  he  slipped  quietly  out  of 
the  room  whenever  it  was  sung.  Nor  could 
Polly's  later  explanation  that  the  last  word  was 
"  happy,"  and  not  "  drunk,"  reconcile  him;  for 
she  had  been  compelled  to  admit  that  the  old 
king  was  a  toper,  and  that  he  was  always  in  his 
cups  when  he  struck  up  the  chant. 

Frederick  was  constantly  oppressed  by  the 
feeling  of  being  out  of  it  all.  He  was  a  social 
being,  and  he  liked  fun,  even  if  it  were  of  a 
more  wholesome  and  dignified  brand  than  that 
to  which  his  brother  was  addicted.  He  could 
not  understand  why  in  the  past  the  young  people 
had  voted  his  house  a  bore  and  come  no  more, 
save  on  state  and  formal  occasions,  until  now, 
when  they  flocked  to  it  and  to  his  brother,  but 
not  to  him.  Nor  could  he  like  the  way  the 
young  women  petted  his  brother,  and  called  him 
Tom,  while  it  was  intolerable  to  see  them  twist 


26     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

and  pull  his  buccaneer  moustache  in  mock  pun 
ishment  when  his  sometimes  too-jolly  banter 
sank  home  to  them. 

Such  conduct  was  a  profanation  to  the  mem 
ory  of  Isaac  and  Eliza  Travers.  There  was  too 
much  an  air  of  revelry  in  the  house.  The  long 
table  was  never  shortened,  while  there  was  extra 
help  in  the  kitchen.  Breakfast  extended  from 
four  until  eleven,  and  the  midnight  suppers,  en 
tailing  raids  on  the  pantry  and  complaints  from 
the  servants,  were  a  vexation  to  Frederick. 
The  house  had  become  a  restaurant,  a  hotel,  he 
sneered  bitterly  to  himself;  and  there  were  times 
when  he  was  sorely  tempted  to  put  his  foot 
down  and  reassert  the  old  ways.  But  somehow 
the  ancient  sorcery  of  his  masterful  brother  was 
too  strong  upon  him;  and  at  times  he  gazed 
upon  him  with  a  sense  almost  of  awe,  groping  to 
fathom  the  alchemy  of  charm,  baffled  by  the 
strange  lights  and  fires  in  his  brother's  eyes,  and 
by  the  wisdom  of  far  places  and  of  wild  nights 
and  days  written  in  his  face.  What  was  it? 
What  lordly  vision  had  the  other  glimpsed?  — 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     27 

he,  the  irresponsible  and  careless  one  ?  Freder 
ick  remembered  a  line  of  an  old  song  — "  Along 
the  shining  ways  he  came"  Why  did  his 
brother  remind  him  of  that  line?  Had  he, 
who  in  boyhood  had  known  no  law,  who  in  man 
hood  had  exalted  himself  above  law,  in  truth 
found  the  shining  ways  ?  \^ 

There  was  an  unfairness  about  vit  that  per 
plexed  Frederick,  until  he  found  solace  in  dwell 
ing  upon  the  failure  Tom  had  made  of  life. 
Then  it  was,  in  quiet  intervals,  that  he  got  some 
comfort  and  stiffened  his  own  pride  by  showing 
Tom  over  the  estate. 

"  You  have  done  well,  Fred,"  Tom  would 
say.  "  You  have  done  very  well." 

He  said  it  often,  and  often  he  drowsed  in  the 
big  smooth-running  machine. 

"  Everything  orderly  and  sanitary  and  spick 
and  span  —  not  a  blade  of  grass  out  of  place," 
was  Polly's  comment.  "  How  do  you  ever 
manage  it?  I  should  not  like  to  be  a  blade  of 
grass  on  your  land,"  she  concluded,  with  a  little 
shivery  shudder. 


28      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  You  have  worked  hard,"  Tom  said. 

"  Yes,  I  have  worked  hard,"  Frederick  af 
firmed.  "  It  was  worth  it." 

He  was  going  to  say  more,  but  the  strange 
flash  in  the  girl's  eyes  brought  him  to  an  un 
comfortable  pause.  He  felt  that  she  measured 
him,  challenged  him.  For  the  first  time  his 
honourable  career  of  building  a  county  common 
wealth  had  been  questioned  —  and  by  a  chit  of 
a  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  wastrel,  herself  but  a 
flighty,  fly-away,  foreign  creature. 

Conflict  between  them  was  inevitable.  He 
had  disliked  her  from  the  first  moment  of 
meeting.  She  did  not  have  to  speak.  Her 
mere  presence  made  him  uncomfortable.  He 
felt  her  unspoken  disapproval,  though  there 
were  times  when  she  did  not  stop  at  that.  Nor 
did  she  mince  language.  She  spoke  forthright, 
like  a  man,  and  as  no  man  had  ever  dared  to 
speak  to  him. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  ever  miss  what  youVe 
missed,"  she  told  him.  "  Did  you  ever,  once 
in  your  life,  turn  yourself  loose  and  rip  things 
up  by  the  roots?  Did  you  ever  once  get  drunk? 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     29 

Or  smoke  yourself  black  in  the  face  ?  Or  dance 
a  hoe-down  on  the  ten  commandments?  Or 
stand  up  on  your  hind  legs  and  wink  like  a  good 
fellow  at  God?" 

"  Isn't  she  a  rare  one!"  Tom  gurgled. 
"  Her  mother  over  again." 

Outwardly  smiling  and  calm,  there  was  a  chill 
of  horror  at  Frederick's  heart.  It  was  in 
credible. 

"  I  think  it  is  the  English,"  she  continued, 
"  who  have  a  saying  that  a  man  has  not  lived 
until  he  has  kissed  his  woman  and  struck  his 
man.  I  wonder  —  confess  up,  now  —  if  you 
ever  struck  a  man." 

"Have  you?"  he  countered. 

She  nodded,  an  angry  reminiscent  flash  in  her 
eyes,  and  waited. 

"  No,  I  have  never  had  that  pleasure,"  he 
answered  slowly.  "  I  early  learned  control." 

Later,  irritated  by  his  self-satisfied  compla 
cence  and  after  listening  to  a  recital  of  how  he 
had  cornered  the  Klamath  salmon-packing, 
planted  the  first  oysters  on  the  bay  and  estab 
lished  that  lucrative  monopoly,  and  of  how, 


30     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

after  exhausting  litigation  and  a  campaign  of 
years  he  had  captured  the  water  front  of  Wil- 
liamsport  and  thereby  won  to  control  of  the 
Lumber  Combine,  she  returned  to  the  charge. 

"  You  seem  to  value  life  in  terms  of  profit 
and  loss,"  she  said.  "  I  wonder  if  you  have 
ever  known  love." 

The  shaft  went  home.  He  had  not  kissed 
his  woman.  His  marriage  had  been  one  of 
policy.  It  had  saved  the  estate  in  the  days 
when  he  had  been  almost  beaten  in  the  struggle 
to  disencumber  the  vast  holdings  Isaac  Travers' 
wide  hands  had  grasped.  The  girl  was  a  witch. 
She  had  probed  an  old  wound  and  made  it  hurt 
again.  He  had  never  had  time  to  love.  He 
had  worked  hard.  He  had  been  president  of 
the  chamber  of  commerce,  mayor  of  the  city, 
state  senator,  but  he  had  missed  love.  At 
chance  moments  he  had  come  upon  Polly,  openly 
and  shamelessly  in  her  father's  arms,  and  he 
had  noted  the  warmth  and  tenderness  in  their 
eyes.  Again  he  knew  that  he  had  missed  love. 
Wanton  as  was  the  display,  not  even  in  private 
did  he  and  Mary  so  behave.  Normal,  formal, 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     31 

and  colourless,  she  was  what  was  to  be  expected 
of  a  loveless  marriage.  He  even  puzzled  to 
decide  whether  the  feeling  he  felt  for  her  was 
love.  Was  he  himself  loveless  as  well? 

In  the  moment  following  Polly's  remark,  he 
was  aware  of  a  great  emptiness.  It  seemed 
that  his  hands  had  grasped  ashes,  until,  glancing 
into  the  other  room,  he  saw  Tom  asleep  in  the 
big  chair,  very  grey  and  aged  and  tired.  He 
remembered  all  that  he  had  done,  all  that  he 
possessed.  Well,  what  did  Tom  possess? 
What  had  Tom  done?  —  save  play  ducks  and 
drakes  with  life  and  wear  it  out  until  all  that 
remained  was  that  dimly  flickering  spark  in  a 
dying  body. 

What  bothered  Frederick  in  Polly  was  that 
she  attracted  him  as  well  as  repelled  him.  His 
own  daughter  had  never  interested  him  in  that 
way.  Mary  moved  along  frictionless  grooves, 
and  to  forecast  her  actions  was  so  effortless  that 
it  was  automatic.  But  Polly!  many-hued, 
protean-natured,  he  never  knew  what  she  was 
going  to  do  next. 

"Keeps  you  guessing,  eh?"  Tom  chuckled. 


32      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

She  was  irresistible.  She  had  her  way  with 
Frederick  in  ways  that  in  Mary  would  have  been 
impossible.  She  took  liberties  with  him, 
cosened  him  or  hurt  him,  and  compelled 
always  in  him  a  sharp  awareness  of  her  exis 
tence. 

Once,  after  one  of  their  clashes,  she  devilled 
him  at  the  piano,  playing  a  mad  damned  thing 
that  stirred  and  irritated  him  and  set  his  pulse 
pounding  wild  and  undisciplined  fancies  in  the 
ordered  chamber  of  his  brain.  The  worst  of 
it  was  she  saw  and  knew  just  what  she  was  do 
ing.  She  was  aware  before  he  was,  and  she 
made  him  aware,  her  face  turned  to  look  at 
him,  on  her  lips  a  mocking,  contemplative  smile 
that  was  almost  a  superior  sneer.  It  was  this 
that  shocked  him  into  consciousness  of  the  orgy 
his  imagination  had  been  playing  him.  From 
the  wall  above  her,  the  stiff  portraits  of  Isaac 
and  Eliza  Travers  looked  down  like  reproach 
ful  spectres.  Infuriated,  he  left  the  room. 
He  had  never  dreamed  such  potencies  resided 
in  music.  And  then,  and  he  remembered  it 
with  shame,  he  had  stolen  back  outside  to  listen, 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     33 

and  she  had  known,  and  once  more  she  had 
devilled  him. 

When  Mary  asked  him  what  he  thought  of 
Polly's  playing,  an  unbidden  contrast  leaped  to 
his  mind.  Mary's  music  reminded  him  of 
church.  It  was  cold  and  bare  as  a  Methodist 
meeting  house.  But  Polly's  was  like  the  mad 
and  lawless  ceremonial  of  some  heathen  temple 
where  incense  arose  and  nautch  girls  writhed. 

"  She  plays  like  a  foreigner,"  he  answered, 
pleased  with  the  success  and  oppositeness  of  his 
evasion. 

"  She  is  an  artist,"  Mary  affirmed  solemnly. 
"  She  is  a  genius.  When  does  she  ever  prac 
tise  ?  When  did  she  ever  practise  ?  You  know 
how  I  have.  My  best  is  like  a  five-finger  exer 
cise  compared  with  the  foolishest  thing  she  rip 
ples  off.  Her  music  tells  me  things  —  oh, 
things  wonderful  and  unutterable.  Mine  tells 
me,  '  one-two-three,  one-two-three.'  Oh,  it  is 
maddening!  I  work  and  work  and  get  no 
where.  It  is  unfair.  Why  should  she  be  born 
that  way,  and  not  I?" 

"  Love,"    was    Frederick's    immediate    and 


34      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

secret  thought;  but  before  he  could  dwell  upon 
the  conclusion,  the  unprecedented  had  happened 
and  Mary  was  sobbing  in  a  break-down  of  tears. 
He  would  have  liked  to  take  her  in  his  arms, 
after  Tom's  fashion,  but  he  did  not  know  how. 
He  tried,  and  found  Mary  as  unschooled  as 
himself.  It  resulted  only  in  an  embarrassed 
awkwardness  for  both  of  them. 

The  contrasting  of  the  two  girls  was  inevi 
table.  Like  father  like  daughter.  Mary  was 
no  more  than  a  pale  camp-follower  of  a  gor 
geous,  conquering  general.  Frederick's  thrift 
had  been  sorely  educated  in  the  matter  of 
clothes.  He  knew  just  how  expensive  Mary's 
clothes  were,  yet  he  could  not  blind  himself  to 
the  fact  that  Polly's  vagabond  makeshifts,  cheap 
and  apparently  haphazard,  were  always  all 
right  and  far  more  successful.  Her  taste  was 
unerring.  Her  ways  with  a  shawl  were  inimi 
table.  With  a  scarf  she  performed  miracles. 

"  She  just  throws  things  together,"  Mary 
complained.  "  She  doesn't  even  try.  She  can 
dress  in  fifteen  minutes,  and  when  she  goes 
swimming  she  beats  the  boys  out  of  the  dressing 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     35 

rooms."  Mary  was  honest  and  incredulous 
in  her  admiration.  "  I  can't  see  how  she  does 
it.  No  one  could  dare  those  colours,  but  they 
look  just  right  on  her." 

"  She's  always  threatened  that  when  I  be 
came  finally  flat  broke  she'd  set  up  dressmaking 
and  take  care  of  both  of  us,"  Tom  contributed. 

Frederick,  looking  over  the  top  of  a  news 
paper,  was  witness  to  an  illuminating  scene; 
Mary,  to  his  certain  knowledge,  had  been 
primping  for  an  hour  ere  she  appeared. 

"  Oh !  How  lovely!  "  was  Polly's  ready  ap 
preciation.  Her  eyes  and  face  glowed  with 
honest  pleasure,  and  her  hands  wove  their  de 
light  in  the  air.  "  But  why  not  wear  that 
bow  ...  so  ...  and  thus?" 

Her  hands  flashed  to  the  task,  and  in  a  mo 
ment  the  miracle  of  taste  and  difference 
achieved  by  her  touch  was  apparent  even  to 
Frederick. 

Polly  was  like  her  father,  generous  to  the 
point  of  absurdity  with  her  meagre  possessions. 
Mary  admired  a  Spanish  fan  —  a  Mexican 
treasure  that  had  come  down  from  one  of  the 


36      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

grand  ladies  of  the  Court  of  the  Emperor  Max 
imilian.  Polly's  delight  flamed  like  wild-fire. 
Mary  found  herself  the  immediate  owner  of 
the  fan,  almost  labouring  under  the  fictitious 
impression  that  she  had  conferred  an  obligation 
by  accepting  it.  Only  a  foreign  woman  could 
do  such  things,  and  Polly  was  guilty  of  similar 
gifts  to  all  the  young  women.  It  was  her  way. 
It  might  be  a  lace  handkerchief,  a  pink  Paumo- 
tan  pearl,  or  a  comb  of  hawksbill  turtle.  It 
was  all  the  same.  Whatever  their  eyes  rested 
on  in  joy  was  theirs.  To  women,  as  to  men, 
she  was  irresistible. 

"  I  don't  dare  admire  anything  any  more," 
was  Mary's  plaint.  "  If  I  do  she  always  gives 
it  to  me." 

Frederick  had  never  dreamed  such  a  creature 
could  exist.  The  women  of  his  own  race  and 
place  had  never  adumbrated  such  a  possibility. 
He  knew  that  whatever  she  did  —  her  quick 
generosities,  her  hot  enthusiasms  or  angers,  her 
birdlike  caressing  ways  —  was  unbelievably  sin 
cere.  Her  extravagant  moods  at  the  same  time 
shocked  and  fascinated  him.  Her  voice  was  as 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     37 

mercurial  as  her  feelings.  There  were  no  even 
tones,  and  she  talked  with  her  hands.  Yet,  in 
her  mouth,  English  was  a  new  and  beautiful 
language,  softly  limpid,  with  an  audacity  of 
phrase  and  tellingness  of  expression  that  con 
veyed  subtleties  and  nuances  as  unambiguous  and 
direct  as  they  were  unexpected  from  one  of  such 
childlikeness  and  simplicity.  He  woke  up  of 
nights  and  on  his  darkened  eyelids  saw  bright 
memory-pictures  of  the  backward  turn  of  her 
vivid,  laughing  face. 


IV 

EKE  daughter  like  father.  Tom,  too,  had 
been  irresistible.  All  the  world  still 
called  to  him,  and  strange  men  came  from  time 
to  time  with  its  messages.  Never  had  there 
been  such  visitors  to  the  Travers  home.  Some 
came  with  the  reminiscent  roll  of  the  sea  in  their 
gait.  Others  were  black-browed  ruffians;  still 
others  were  fever-burnt  and  sallow;  and  about 
all  of  them  was  something  bizarre  and  outland 
ish.  Their  talk  was  likewise  bizarre  and  out 
landish,  of  things  to  Frederick  unguessed  and 
undreamed,  though  he  recognised  the  men  for 
what  they  were  —  soldiers  of  fortune,  adven 
turers,  free  lances  of  the  world.  But  the  big 
patent  thing  was  the  love  and  loyalty  they  bore 
their  leader.  They  named  him  variously  — 
Black  Tom,  Blondine,  Husky  Travers,  Male- 
mute  Tom,  Swiftwater  Tom  —  but  most  of  all 
he  was  Captain  Tom.  Their  projects  and 

38 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     39 

propositions  were  equally  various,  from  the 
South  Sea  trader  with  the  discovery  of  a  new 
guano  island  and  the  Latin-American  with  a 
nascent  revolution  on  his  hands,  on  through 
Siberian  gold  chases  and  the  prospecting  of  the 
placer  benches  of  the  upper  Kuskokeem,  to 
darker  things  that  were  mentioned  only  in  whis 
pers.  And  Captain  Tom  regretted  the  tem 
porary  indisposition  that  prevented  immediate 
departure  with  them,  and  continued  to  sit  and 
drowse  more  and  more  in  the  big  chair.  It  was 
Polly,  with  a  camaraderie  distasteful  to  her 
uncle,  who  got  these  men  aside  and  broke  the 
news  that  Captain  Tom  would  never  go  out  on 
the  shining  ways  again.  But  not  all  of  them 
came  with  projects.  Many  made  love-calls  on 
their  leader  of  old  and  unforgetable  days,  and 
Frederick  sometimes  was  a  witness  to  their  meet 
ing,  and  he  marvelled  anew  at  the  mysterious 
charm  in  his  brother  that  drew  all  men  to  him. 
"  By  the  turtles  of  Tasman !  "  cried  one, 
"  when  I  heard  you  was  in  California,  Captain 
Tom,  I  just  had  to  come  and  shake  hands.  I 
reckon  you  ain't  forgot  Tasman,  eh?  —  nor  the 


40     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

scrap  at  Thursday  Island.  Say  —  old  Tasman 
was  killed  by  his  niggers  only  last  year  up  Ger 
man  New  Guinea  way.  Remember  his  cook- 
boy? —  Ngani-Ngani?  He  was  the  ring 
leader.  Tasman  swore  by  him,  but  Ngani- 
Ngani  hatcheted  him  just  the  same." 

"  Shake  hands  with  Captain  Carlsen,  Fred," 
was  Tom's  introduction  of  his  brother  to  an 
other  visitor.  "  He  pulled  me  out  of  a  tight 
place  on  the  West  Coast  once.  I'd  have  cashed 
in,  Carlsen,  if  you  hadn't  happened  along." 

Captain  Carlsen  was  a  giant  hulk  of  a  man, 
with  gimlet  eyes  of  palest  blue,  a  slash-scarred 
mouth  that  a  blazing  red  beard  could  not  quite 
hide,  and  a  grip  in  his  hand  that  made  Frederick 
squirm. 

A  few  minutes  later,  Tom  had  his  brother 
aside. 

"  Say,  Fred,  do  you  think  it  will  bother  to 
advance  me  a  thousand?  " 

"  Of  course,"  Frederick  answered  splendidly. 
"  You  know  half  of  that  I  have  is  yours,  Tom." 

And  when  Captain  Carlsen  departed,  Fred- 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN     41 

crick  was  morally  certain  that  the  thousand  dol 
lars  departed  with  him. 

Small  wonder  Tom  had  made  a  failure  of 
life  —  and  come  home  to  die.  Frederick  sat  at 
his  own  orderly  desk  taking  stock  of  the  differ 
ence  between  him  and  his  brother.  Yes,  and  if 
it  hadn't  been  for  him,  there  would  have  been 
no  home  for  Tom  to  die  in. 

Frederick  cast  back  for  solace  through  their 
joint  history.  It  was  he  who  had  always  been 
the  mainstay,  the  dependable  one.  Tom  had 
laughed  and  rollicked,  played  hooky  from 
school,  disobeyed  Isaac's  commandments.  To 
the  mountains  or  the  sea,  or  in  hot  water  with 
the  neighbours  and  the  town  authorities  —  it 
was  all  the  same ;  he  was  everywhere  save  where 
the  dull  plod  of  work  obtained.  And  work  was 
work  in  those  backwoods  days,  and  he,  Freder 
ick,  had  done  the  work.  Early  and  late  and 
all  days  he  had  been  at  it.  He  remembered  the 
season  when  Isaac's  wide  plans  had  taken  one 
of  their  smashes,  when  food  had  been  scarce  on 
the  table  of  a  man  who  owned  a  hundred 


42     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

thousand  acres,  when  there  had  been  no  money 
to  hire  harvesters  for  the  hay,  and  when  Isaac 
would  not  let  go  his  grip  on  a  single  one  of  his 
acres.  He,  Frederick,  had  pitched  the  hay, 
while  Isaac  mowed  and  raked.  Torn  had  lain 
in  bed  and  run  up  a  doctor  bill  with  a  broken 
leg*  gained  by  falling  off  the  ridge-pole  of  the 
barn  —  which  place  was  the  last  in  the  world 
to  which  any  one  would  expect  to  go  to  pitch 
hay.  About  the  only  work  Tom  had  ever  done, 
it  seemed  to  him,  was  to  fetch  in  venison  and 
bear-oil,  to  break  colts,  and  to  raise  a  din  in  the 
valley  pastures  and  wooded  canyons  with  his 
bear-hounds. 

Tom  was  the  elder,  yet  when  Isaac  died,  the 
estate,  with  all  its  vast  possibilities  would  have 
gone  to  ruin,  had  not  he,  Frederick,  buckled 
down  to  it  and  put  the  burden  on  his  back. 
Work!  He  remembered  the  enlargement  of 
the  town  water-system  —  how  he  had  manoeu 
vred  and  financed,  persuaded  small  loans  at 
ruinous  interest,  and  laid  pipe  and  made  joints 
by  lantern  light  while  the  workmen  slept,  and 
then  been  up  ahead  of  them  to  outline  and  direct 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     43 

and  rack  his  brains  over  the  raising  of  the  next 
week-end  wages.  For  he  had  carried  on  old 
Isaac's  policy.  He  would  not  let  go.  The 
future  would  vindicate. 

And  Tom!  —  with  a  bigger  pack  of  bear 
dogs  ranging  the  mountains  and  sleeping  out  a 
week  at  a  time.  Frederick  remembered  the 
final  conference  in  the  kitchen  —  Tom,  and  he, 
and  Eliza  Travers,  who  still  cooked  and  baked 
and  washed  dishes  on  an  estate  that  carried  a 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars  in  mort 
gages. 

"  Don't  divide,"  Eliza  Travers  had  pleaded, 
resting  her  soap-flecked,  parboiled  arms. 
"  Isaac  was  right.  It  will  be  worth  millions. 
The  country  is  opening  up.  We  must  all  pull 
together." 

"  I  don't  want  the  estate,"  Tom  cried.  "  Let 
Frederick  have  it.  What  I  want  .  .  ." 

He  never  completed  the  sentence,  but  all  the 
vision  of  the  world  burned  in  his  eyes. 

"  I  can't  wait,"  he  went  on.  "  You  can  have 
the  millions  when  they  come.  In  the  mean 
time  let  me  have  ten  thousand.  I'll  sign  off 


44      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

quitclaim  to  everything.  And  give  me  the  old 
schooner,  and  some  day  I'll  be  back  with  a  pot 
of  money  to  help  you  out." 

Frederick  could  see  himself,  in  that  far  past 
day,  throwing  up  his  arms  in  horror  and  cry 
ing: 

"  Ten  thousand!  —  when  I'm  strained  to  the 
breaking  point  to  raise  this  quarter's  interest!  " 

"  There's  the  block  of  land  next  to  the  court 
house,"  Tom  had  urged.  "  I  know  the  bank 
has  a  standing  offer  for  ten  thousand." 

"  But  it  will  be  worth  a  hundred  thousand  in 
ten  years,"  Frederick  had  objected. 

"  Call  it  so.  Say  I  quitclaim  everything  for 
a  hundred  thousand.  Sell  it  for  ten  and  let  me 
have  it.  It's  all  I  want,  and  I  want  it  now. 
You  can  have  the  rest." 

And  Tom  had  had  his  will  as  usual  (the  block 
had  been  mortgaged  instead  of  sold) ,  and  sailed 
away  in  the  old  schooner,  the  benediction  of  the 
town  upon  his  head,  for  he  had  carried  away  in 
his  crew  half  the  riff-raff  of  the  beach. 

The  bones  of  the  schooner  had  been  left  on 
the  coast  of  Java.  That  had  been  when  Eliza 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     45 

Travers  was  being  operated  on  for  her  eyes, 
and  Frederick  had  kept  it  from  her  until  indubi 
table  proof  came  that  Tom  was  still  alive. 

Frederick  went  over  to  his  files  and  drew  out 
a  drawer  labelled  "  Thomas  Travers."  In  it 
were  packets,  methodically  arranged.  He 
went  over  the  letters.  They  were  from  every 
where  —  China,  Rangoon,  Australia,  South 
Africa,  the  Gold  Coast,  Patagonia,  Armenia, 
Alaska.  Briefly  and  infrequently  written,  they 
epitomised  the  wanderer's  life.  Frederick  ran 
over  in  his  mind  a  few  of  the  glimpsed  high 
lights  of  Tom's  career.  He  had  fought  in 
some  sort  of  foreign  troubles  in  Armenia.  He 
had  been  an  officer  in  the  Chinese  army,  and  it 
was  a  certainty  that  the  trade  he  later  drove  in 
the  China  Seas  was  illicit.  He  had  been  caught 
running  arms  into  Cuba.  It  seemed  he  had 
always  been  running  something  somewhere  that 
it  ought  not  to  have  been  run.  And  he  had 
never  outgrown  it.  One  letter,  on  crinkly  tis 
sue  paper,  showed  that  as  late  as  the  Japanese- 
Russian  War  he  had  been  caught  running  coal 
into  Port  Arthur  and  been  taken  to  the  prize 


46      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

court  at  Sasebo,  where  his  steamer  was  confis 
cated  and  he  remained  a  prisoner  until  the  end 
of  the  war. 

Frederick  smiled  as  he  read  a  paragraph: 
"  How  do  you  prosper?  Let  me  know  any 
time  a  few  thousands  will  help  you."  He 
looked  at  the  date,  April  18,  1883,  and  opened 
another  packet.  "May  $th"  1883,  was  the 
dated  sheet  he  drew  out.  "Five  thousand  will 
put  me  on  my  feet  again.  •  If  you  can,  and  love 
me,  send  it  along  pronto  —  that's  Spanish  for 
rush." 

He  glanced  again  at  the  two  dates.  It  was 
evident  that  somewhere  between  April  i8th  and 
May  5th  Tom  had  come  a  cropper.  With  a 
smile,  half  bitter,  Frederick  skimmed  on 
through  the  correspondence :  '  There's  a 
wreck  on  Midway  Island.  A  fortune  In  It,  sal 
vage  you  know.  Auction  In  two  days.  Cable 
me  four  thousand"  The  last  he  examined, 
ran :  "  A  deal  I  can  swing  with  a  little  cash. 
It's  big,  I  tell  you.  It's  so  big  I  don't  dare  tell 
you."  He  remembered  that  deal  —  a  Latin- 
American  revolution.  He  had  sent  the  cash, 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     47 

and  Tom  had  swung  it,  and  himself  as  well,  into 
a  prison  cell  and  a  death  sentence. 

Tom  had  meant  well,  there  was  no  denying 
that.  And  he  had  always  religiously  for 
warded  his  I  O  U's.  Frederick  musingly 
weighed  the  packet  of  them  in  his  hand,  as 
though  to  determine  if  any  relation  existed  be 
tween  the  weight  of  paper  and  the  sums  of 
money  represented  on  it. 

He  put  the  drawer  back  in  the  cabinet  and 
passed  out.  Glancing  in  at  the  big  chair  he 
saw  Polly  just  tiptoeing  from  the  room.  Tom's 
head  lay  back,  and  his  breathing  was  softly 
heavy,  the  sickness  pronouncedly  apparent  on 
his  relaxed  face. 


UT  HAVE  worked  hard,"  Frederick  explained 
JL  to  Polly  that  evening  on  the  veranda,  un 
aware  that  when  a  man  explains  it  is  a  sign  his 
situation  is  growing  parlous.  "  I  have  done 
what  came  to  my  hand  —  how  creditably  it  is 
for  others  to  say.  And  I  have  been  paid  for 
it.  I  have  taken  care  of  others  and  taken  care 
of  myself.  The  doctors  say  they  have  never 
seen  such  a  constitution  in  a  man  of  my  years. 
Why,  almost  half  my  life  is  yet  before  me,  and 
we  Travers  are  a  long-lived  stock.  I  took  care 
of  myself,  you  see,  and  I  have  myself  to  show 
for  it.  I  was  not  a  waster.  I  conserved  my 
heart  and  my  arteries,  and  yet  there  are  few 
men  who  can  boast  having  done  as  much  work 
as  I  have  done.  Look  at  that  hand.  Steady, 
eh?  It  will  be  as  steady  twenty  years  from 
now.  There  is  nothing  in  playing  fast  and 
loose  with  oneself." 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     49 

And  all  the  while  Polly  had  been  following 
the  invidious  comparison  that  lurked  behind  his 
words. 

"  You  can  write  *  Honourable  '  before  your 
name,1'  she  flashed  up  proudly.  u  But  my 
father  has  been  a  king.  He  has  lived.  Have 
you  lived?  What  have  you  got  to  show  for 
it?  Stocks  and  bonds,  and  houses  and  servants 
—  pouf!  Heart  and  arteries  and  a  steady 
hand  —  is  that  all?  Have  you  lived  merely  to 
live?  Were  you  afraid  to  die?  I'd  rather 
sing  one  wild  song  and  burst  my  heart  with  it, 
than  live  a  thousand  years  watching  my  diges 
tion  and  being  afraid  of  the  wet.  When  you 
are  dust,  my  father  will  be  ashes.  That  is  the 
difference." 

"  But  my  dear  child  — "  he  began. 

"What  have  you  got  to  show  for  it?"  she 
flamed  on.  *'  Listen !  " 

From  within,  through  the  open  window,  came 
the  tinkling  of  Tom's  ukulele  and  the  rollicking 
lilt  of  his  voice  in  an  Hawaiian  hula.  It  ended 
in  a  throbbing,  primitive  love-call  from  the  sen 
suous  tropic  night  that  no  one  could  mistake. 


50     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

There  was  a  burst  of  young  voices,  and  a 
clamour  for  more.  Frederick  did  not  speak. 
He  had  sensed  something  vague  and  significant. 

Turning,  he  glanced  through  the  window  at 
Tom,  flushed  and  royal,  surrounded  by  the 
young  men  and  women,  under  his  Viking  mous 
tache  lighting  a  cigarette  from  a  match  held  to 
*  him  by  one  of  the  girls.  It  abruptly  struck 
Frederick  that  never  had  he  lighted  a  cigar  at 
a  match  held  in  a  woman's  hand. 

"  Doctor  Tyler  says  he  oughtn't  to  smoke  — 
it  only  aggravates,"  he  said;  and  it  was  all  he 
could  say. 

As  the  fall  of  the  year  came  on,  a  new  type 
of  men  began  to  frequent  the  house.  They 
proudly  called  themselves  "  sour-doughs,"  and 
they  were  arriving  in  San  Francisco  on  the  win 
ter's  furlough  from  the  gold-diggings  of  Alaska. 
More  and  more  of  them  came,  arid  they  pre 
empted  a  large  portion  of  one  of  the  down-town 
hotels.  Captain  Tom  was  fading  with  the 
season,  and  almost  lived  in  the  big  chair.  He 
drowsed  oftener  and  longer,  but  whenever  he 
awoke  he  was  surrounded  by  his  court  of  young 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     51 

people,  or  there  was  some  comrade  waiting  to 
sit  and  yarn  about  the  old  gold  days  and  plan 
for  the  new  gold  days. 

For  Tom  —  Husky  Travers,  the  Yukoners 
named  him  —  never  thought  that  the  end  ap 
proached.  A  temporary  illness,  he  called  it, 
the  natural  enfeeblement  following  upon  a  pro 
longed  bout  with  Yucatan  fever.  In  the  spring 
he  would  be  right  and  fit  again.  Cold  weather 
was  what  he  needed.  His  blood  had  been 
cooked.  In  the  meantime  it  was  a  case  of  take 
it  easy  and  make  the  most  of  the  rest. 

And  no  one  undeceived  him  —  not  even  the 
Yukoners,  who  smoked  pipes  and  black  cigars 
and  chewed  tobacco  on  Frederick's  broad  ver 
andas  until  he  felt  like  an  intruder  in  his  own 
house.  There  was  no  touch  with  them.  They 
regarded  him  as  a  stranger  to  be  tolerated. 
They  came  to  see  Tom.  And  their  manner  of 
seeing  him  was  provocative  of  innocent  envy 
pangs  to  Frederick.  Day  after  day  he  watched 
them.  He  would  see  the  Yukoners  meet,  per 
haps  one  just  leaving  the  sick  room  and  one 
just  going  in.  They  would  clasp  hands,  sol- 


52      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

emnly  and  silently,  outside  the  door.  The  new 
comer  would  question  with  his  eyes,  and  the 
other  would  shake  his  head.  And  more  than 
once  Frederick  noted  the  moisture  in  their  eyes. 
Then  the  newcomer  would  enter  and  draw  his 
chair  up  to  Tom's,  and  with  jovial  voice  proceed 
to  plan  the  outfitting  for  the  exploration  of  the 
upper  Kuskokeem;  for  it  was  there  Tom  was 
bound  in  the  spring.  Dogs  could  be  had  at 
Larabee's  —  a  clean  breed,  too,  with  no  taint  of 
the  soft  Southland  strains.  It  was  rough  coun 
try,  it  was  reported,  but  if  sour-doughs  couldn't 
make  the  traverse  from  Larabee's  in  forty  days 
they'd  like  to  see  a  chechako  do  it  in  sixty. 

And  so  it  went,  until  Frederick  wondered, 
when  he  came  to  die,  if  there  was  one  man  in 
the  county,  much  less  in  the  adjoining  county, 
who  would  come  to  him  at  his  bedside. 

Seated  at  his  desk,  through  the  open  windows 
would  drift  whiffs  of  strong  tobacco  and 
rumbling  voices,  and  he  could  not  help  catching 
snatches  of  what  the  Yukoners  talked. 

"  D'ye  recollect  that  Koyokuk  rush  in  the 
early  nineties?"  he  would  hear  one  say. 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     53 

"  Well,  him  an'  me  was  pardners  then,  tradin' 
an'  such.  We  had  a  dinky  little  steamboat,  the 
Blatterbat.  He  named  her  that,  an'  it  stuck. 
He  was  a  caution.  Well,  sir,  as  I  was  sayin', 
him  an'  me  loaded  the  little  Blatterbat  to  the 
guards  an'  started  up  the  Koyokuk,  me  firin'  an' 
engineerin'  an'  him  steerin',  an'  both  of  us  deck- 
handin'.  Once  in  a  while  we'd  tie  to  the  bank 
an'  cut  firewood.  It  was  the  fall,  an'  mush-ice 
was  comin'  down,  an'  everything  gettin'  ready 
for  the  freeze  up.  You  see,  we  was  north  of 
the  Arctic  Circle  then  an'  still  headin'  north. 
But  they  was  two  hundred  miners  in  there 
needin'  grub  if  they  wintered,  an'  we  had  the 
grub. 

"  Well,  sir,  pretty  soon  they  begun  to  pass  us, 
driftin'  down  the  river  in  canoes  an'  rafts. 
They  was  pullin'  out.  We  kept  track  of  them. 
When  a  hundred  an'  ninety-four  had  passed, 
we  didn't  see  no  reason  for  keepin'  on.  So  we 
turned  tail  and  started  down.  A  cold  snap  had 
come,  an'  the  water  was  fallin'  fast,  an'  dang 
me  if  we  didn't  ground  on  a  bar  —  up-stream 
side.  The  Blatterbat  hung  up  solid.  Couldn't 


54      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

budge  her.  *  It's  a  shame  to  waste  all  that 
grub,'  says  I,  just  as  we  was  pullin'  out  in  a 
canoe.  *  Let's  stay  an'  eat  it,'  says  he.  An' 
dang  me  if  we  didn't.  We  wintered  right  there 
on  the  Blatterbat,  huntin'  and  tradin'  with  the 
Indians,  an'  when  the  river  broke  next  year  we 
brung  down  eight  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
skins.  Now  a  whole  winter,  just  two  of  us,  is 
goin'  some.  But  never  a  cross  word  out  of 
him.  Best-tempered  pardner  I  ever  seen.  But 
fight!" 

"  Huh!  "  came  the  other  voice.  "  I  remem 
ber  the  winter  Oily  Jones  allowed  he'd  clean  out 
Forty  Mile.  Only  he  didn't,  for  about  the 
second  yap  he  let  off  he  ran  afoul  of  Husky 
Travers.  It  was  in  the  White  Caribou.  '  I'm 
a  wolf!  '  yaps  Jones.  You  know  his  style,  a 
gun  in  his  belt,  fringes  on  his  moccasins,  and 
long  hair  down  his  back.  'I'm  a  wolf,'  he 
yaps,  *  an'  this  is  my  night  to  howl.  Hear  me, 
you  long  lean  makeshift  of  a  human  critter?' 
—  an'  this  to  Husky  Travers." 

'Well?"  the  other  voice  queried,  after  a 
pause. 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     55 

"  In  about  a  second  an'  a  half  Oily  Jones  was 
on  the  floor  an'  Husky  on  top  askin'  somebody 
kindly  to  pass  him  a  butcher  knife.  What's  he 
do  but  plumb  hack  off  all  of  Oily  Jones'  long 
hair.  '  Now  howl,  damn  you,  howl,'  says 
Husky,  gettin'  up." 

"  He  was  a  cool  one,  for  a  wild  one,"  the 
first  voice  took  up.  "  I  seen  him  buck  roulette 
in  the  Little  Wolverine,  drop  nine  thousand  in 
two  hours,  borrow  some  more,  win  it  back  in 
fifteen  minutes,  buy  the  drinks,  an'  cash  in  — 
dang  me,  all  in  fifteen  minutes." 

One  evening  Tom  was  unusually  brightly 
awake,  and  Frederick,  joining  the  rapt  young 
circle,  sat  and  listened  to  his  brother's  serio 
comic  narrative  of  the  night  of  wreck  on  the 
island  of  Blang;  of  the  swim  through  the  sharks 
where  half  the  crew  was  lost;  of  the  great  pearl 
which  Desay  brought  ashore  with  him;  of  the 
head-decorated  palisade  that  surrounded  the 
grass  palace  wherein  dwelt  the  Malay  queen 
with  her  royal  consort,  a  shipwrecked  Chinese 
Eurasian;  of  the  intrigue  for  the  pearl  of 
Desay;  of  mad  feasts  and  dances  in  the  barbaric 


56      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

night,  and  quick  dangers  and  sudden  deaths;  of 
the  queen's  love-making  to  Desay,  of  Desay's 
love-making  to  the  queen's  daughter,  and  of 
Desay,  every  joint  crushed,  still  alive,  staked 
out  on  the  reef  at  low  tide  to  be  eaten  by  the 
sharks;  of  the  coming  of  the  plague;  of  the 
beating  of  tom-toms  and  the  exorcising  of  the 
devil-devil  doctors;  of  the  flight  over  the  man- 
trapped,  wild-pig  runs  of  the  mountain  bush- 
men;  and  of  the  final  rescue  by  Tasman,  he  who 
was  hatcheted  only  last  year  and  whose  head  re 
posed  in  some  Melanesian  stronghold  —  and 
all  breathing  of  the  warmth  and  abandon  and 
savagery  of  the  burning  islands  of  the  sun. 

And  despite  himself,  Frederick  sat  entranced; 
and  when  all  the  tale  was  told,  he  was  aware  of 
a  queer  emptiness.  He  remembered  back  to  his 
boyhood,  when  he  had  pored  over  the  illustra 
tions  in  the  old-fashioned  geography.  He,  too, 
had  dreamed  of  amazing  adventure  in  far 
places  and  desired  to  go  out  on  the  shining  ways. 
And  he  had  planned  to  go;  yet  he  had  known 
only  work  and  duty.  Perhaps  that  was  the 
difference.  Perhaps  that  was  the  secret  of  the 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN     57 

strange  wisdom  in  his  brother's  eyes.  For  the 
moment,  faint  and  far,  vicariously,  he  glimpsed 
the  lordly  vision  his  brother  had  seen.  He  re 
membered  a  sharp  saying  of  Polly's.  "  You 
have  missed  romance.  You  traded  it  for  divi 
dends."  She  was  right,  and  yet,  not  fair. 
He  had  wanted  romance,  but  the  work  had 
been  placed  ready  to  his  hand.  He  had 
toiled  and  moiled,  day  and  night,  and  been 
faithful  to  his  trust  Yet  he  had  missed  love 
and  the  world-living  that  was  forever  a-whisper 
in  his  brother.  And  what  had  Tom  done  to 
deserve  it?  —  a  wastrel  and  an  idle  singer  of 
songs. 

His  place  was  high.  He  was  going  to  be  the 
next  governor  of  California.  But  what  man 
would  come  to  him  and  lie  to  him  out  of  love? 
The  thought  of  all  his  property  seemed  to  put 
a  dry  and  gritty  taste  in  his  mouth.  Property  I 
Now  that  he  looked  at  it,  one  thousand  dollars 
was  like  any  other  thousand  dollars;  and  one 
day  (of  his  days)  was  like  any  other  day.  He 
had  never  made  the  pictures  in  the  geography 
come  true.  He  had  not  struck  his  man,  nor 


58      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

lighted  his  cigar  at  a  match  held  in  a  woman's 
hand.  A  man  could  sleep  in  only  one  bed  at  a 
time  —  Tom  had  said  that.  He  shuddered  as 
he  strove  to  estimate  how  many  beds  he  owned, 
how  many  blankets  he  had  bought.  And  all  the 
beds  and  blankets  would  not  buy  one  man  to 
come  from  the  end  of  the  earth,  and  grip  his 
hand,  and  cry,  "  By  the  turtles  of  Tasman!  " 

Something  of  all  this  he  told  Polly,  an  under 
current  of  complaint  at  the  unfairness  of  things 
in  his  tale.  And  she  had  answered: 

"  It  couldn't  have  been  otherwise.  Father 
bought  it.  He  never  drove  bargains.  It  was 
a  royal  thing,  and  he  paid  for  it  royally.  You 
grudged  the  price,  don't  you  see.  You  saved 
your  arteries  and  your  money  and  kept  your  feet 
dry." 


VI 

ON  an  afternoon  in  the  late  fall  all  were 
gathered  about  the  big  chair  and  Captain 
Tom.  Though  he  did  not  know  it,  he  had 
drowsed  the  whole  day  through  and  only  just 
awakened  to  call  for  his  ukulele  and  light  a 
cigarette  at  Polly's  hand.  But  the  ukulele  lay 
idle  on  his  arm,  and  though  the  pine  logs 
crackled  in  the  huge  fireplace  he  shivered  and 
took  note  of  the  cold. 

"  It's  a  good  sign,"  he  said,  unaware  that  the 
faintness  of  his  voice  drew  the  heads  of  his  lis 
teners  closer.  "  The  cold  weather  will  be  a 
tonic.  It's  a  hard  job  to  work  the  tropics  out 
of  one's  blood.  But  I'm  beginning  to  shape  up 
now  for  the  Kuskokeem.  In  the  spring,  Polly, 
we  start  with  the  dogs,  and  you'll  see  the  mid 
night  sun.  How  your  mother  would  have  liked 
the  trip.  She  was  a  game  one.  Forty  sleeps 
with  the  dogs,  and  we'll  be  shaking  out  yellow 

59 


60     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

nuggets  from  the  moss-roots.  Larabee  has 
some  fine  animals.  I  know  the  breed.  They're 
timber  wolves,  that's  what  they  are,  big  grey 
timber  wolves,  though  they  sport  brown  about 
one  in  a  litter  —  isn't  that  right,  Bennington?  " 

"  One  in  a  litter,  that's  just  about  the 
average,"  Bennington,  the  Yukoner,  replied 
promptly,  but  in  a  voice  hoarsely  unrecognis 
able. 

"  And  you  must  never  travel  alone  with 
them,"  Captain  Tom  went  on.  "  For  if  you 
fall  down  they'll  jump  you.  Larabee's  brutes 
only  respect  a  man  when  he  stands  upright  on 
his  legs.  When  he  goes  down,  he's  meat.  I 
remember  coming  over  the  divide  from  Tanana 
to  Circle  City.  That  was  before  the  Klondike 
strike.  It  was  in  '94  ...  no,  '95,  and  the 
bottom  had  dropped  out  of  the  thermometer. 
There  was  a  young  Canadian  with  the  outfit. 
His  name  was  ...  it  was  a  peculiar  one  .  .  . 
wait  a  minute  ...  it  will  come  to  me.  .  .  ." 

His  voice  ceased  utterly,  though  his  lips  still 
moved.  A  look  of  unbelief  and  vast  surprise 
dawned  on  his  face.  Followed  a  sharp,  con- 


BY  THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN     61 

vulsive  shudder.  And  in  that  moment,  without 
warning,  he  saw  Death.  He  looked  clear-eyed 
and  steady,  as  if  pondering,  then  turned  to 
Polly.  His  hand  moved  impotently,  as  if  to 
reach  hers,  and  when  he  found  it,  his  fingers 
could  not  close.  He  gazed  at  her  with  a  great 
smile  that  slowly  faded.  The  eyes  drooped  as 
the  life  went  out,  and  remained  a  face  of 
quietude  and  repose.  The  ukulele  clattered  to 
the  floor.  One  by  one  they  went  softly  from 
the  room,  leaving  Polly  alone. 

From  the  veranda,  Frederick  watched  a  man 
coming  up  the  driveway.  By  the  roll  of  the 
sea  in  his  walk,  Frederick  could  guess  for  whom 
the  stranger  came.  The  face  was  swarthy  with 
sun  and  wrinkled  with  age  that  was  given  the  lie 
by  the  briskness  of  his  movements  and  the  alert 
ness  in  the  keen  black  eyes.  In  the  lobe  of  each 
ear  was  a  tiny  circlet  of  gold. 

"  How  do  you  do,  sir,"  the  man  said,  and  it 
was  patent  that  English  was  not  the  tongue  he 
had  learned  at  his  mother's  knee.  "  How's 
Captain  Tom?  They  told  me  in  the  town  that 
he  was  sick." 


62     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  My  brother  is  dead/'  Frederick  answered. 

The  stranger  turned  his  head  and  gazed  out 
over  the  park-like  grounds  and  up  to  the  distant 
redwood  peaks,  and  Frederick  noted  that  he 
swallowed  with  an  effort. 

"  By  the  turtles  of  Tasman,  he  was  a  man," 
he  said,  in  a  deep,  changed  voice. 

"  By  the  turtles  of  Tasman,  he  was  a  man," 
Frederick  repeated;  nor  did  he  stumble  over  the 
unaccustomed  oath. 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS 

A  STRANGE  life  has  come  to  an  end  in  the  death 
of    Mr.    Sedley    Crayden,    of    Crayden    Hill. 

Mild,  harmless,  he  was  the  victim  of  a  strange 
delusion  that  kept  him  pinned,  night  and  day,  in  his 
chair  for  the  last  two  years  of  his  life.  The  mys 
terious  death,  or,  rather,  disappearance,  of  his  elder 
brother,  James  Crayden,  seems  to  have  preyed  upon 
his  mind,  for  it  was  shortly  after  that  event  that  his 
delusion  began  to  manifest  itself. 

Mr.  Crayden  never  vouchsafed  any  explanation  of 
his  strange  conduct.  There  was  nothing  the  matter 
with  him  physically;  and,  mentally,  the  alienists  found 
him  normal  in  every  way  save  for  his  one  remarkable 
idiosyncrasy.  His  remaining  in  his  chair  was  purely 
voluntary,  an  act  of  his  own  will.  And  now  he  is 
dead,  and  the  mystery  remains  unsolved. 

— Extract  from  the  Newton  Courier-Times. 

Briefly,  I  was  Mr.  Sedley  Crayden's  confidential 
servant  and  valet  for  the  last  eight  months  of  his 
life.  During  that  time  he  wrote  a  great  deal  in  a 
manuscript  that  he  kept  always  beside  him,  except 

63 


64     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

when  he  drowsed  or  slept,  at  which  times  he  invariably 
locked  it  in  a  desk  drawer  close  to  his  hand. 

I  was  curious  to  read  what  the  old  gentleman 
wrote,  but  he  was  too  cautious  and  cunning.  I  never 
got  a  peep  at  the  manuscript.  If  he  were  engaged 
upon  it  when  I  attended  on  him,  he  covered  the  top 
sheet  with  a  large  blotter.  It  was  I  who  found  him 
dead  in  his  chair,  and  it  was  then  that  I  took  the 
liberty  of  abstracting  the  manuscript.  I  was  very 
curious  to  read  it,  and  I  have  no  excuses  to  offer. 

After  retaining  it  in  my  secret  possession  for  several 
years,  and  after  ascertaining  that  Mr.  Crayden  left 
no  surviving  relatives,  I  have  decided  to  make  the 
nature  of  the  manuscript  known.  It  is  very  long, 
and  I  have  omitted  nearly  all  of  it,  giving  only  the 
more  lucid  fragments.  It  bears  all  the  earmarks  of 
a  disordered  mind,  and  various  experiences  are  re 
peated  over  and  over,  while  much  is  so  vague  and  in 
coherent  as  to  defy  comprehension.  Nevertheless, 
from  reading  it  myself,  I  venture  to  predict  that  if 
an  excavation  is  made  in  the  main  basement,  some 
where  in  the  vicinity  of  the  foundation  of  the  great 
chimney,  a  collection  of  bones  will  be  found  which 
should  very  closely  resemble  those  which  James  Cray- 
den  once  clothed  in  mortal  flesh. 

—  Statement  of  Rudolph  Heckler. 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      65 

Here  follows  the  excerpts  from  the  manu 
script,  made  and  arranged  by  Rudolph  Heck 
ler: 

I  never  killed  my  brother.  Let  this  be  my 
first  word  and  my  last.  Why  should  I  kill  him  ? 
We  lived  together  in  unbroken  harmony  for 
twenty  years.  We  were  old  men,  and  the  fires 
and  tempers  of  youth  had  long  since  burned  out. 
We  never  disagreed  even  over  the  most  trivial 
things.  Never  was  there  such  amity  as  ours. 
We  were  scholars.  We  cared  nothing  for  the 
outside  world.  Our  companionship  and  our 
books  were  all-satisfying.  Never  were  there 
such  talks  as  we  held.  Many  a  night  we  have 
sat  up  till  two  and  three  in  the  morning,  con 
versing,  weighing  opinions  and  judgments,  re 
ferring  to  authorities  —  in  short,  we  lived  at 
high  and  friendly  intellectual  altitudes. 

He  disappeared.  I  suffered  a  great  shock. 
Why  should  he  have  disappeared?  Where 
could  he  have  gone?  It  was  very  strange.  I 
was  stunned.  They  say  I  was  very  sick  for 


66     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

weeks.  It  was  brain  fever.  This  was  caused 
by  his  inexplicable  disappearance.  It  was  at 
the  beginning  of  the  experience  I  hope  here  to 
relate,  that  he  disappeared. 

How  I  have  endeavoured  to  find  him.  I  am 
not  an  excessively  rich  man,  yet  have  I  offered 
continually  increasing  rewards.  I  have  adver 
tised  in  all  the  papers,  and  sought  the  aid  of  all 
the  detective  bureaus.  At  the  present  moment, 
the  rewards  I  have  out  aggregate  over  fifty 
thousand  dollars. 

They  say  he  was  murdered.  They  also  say 
murder  will  out.  Then  I  say,  why  does  not  his 
murder  come  out?  Who  did  it?  Where  is 
he?  Where  is  Jim?  My  Jim? 

We  were  so  happy  together.  He  had  a  re 
markable  mind,  a  most  remarkable  mind,  so 
firmly  founded,  so  widely  informed,  so  rigidly 
logical,  that  it  was  not  at  all  strange  that  we 
agreed  in  all  things.  Dissension  was  unknown 
between  us.  Jim  was  the  most  truthful  man 
I  have  ever  met.  In  this,  too,  we  were  similar, 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      67 

as  we  were  similar  in  our  intellectual  honesty. 
We  never  sacrificed  truth  to  make  a  point.  We 
had  no  points  to  make,  we  so  thoroughly  agreed. 
It  is  absurd  to  think  that  we  could  disagree  on 
anything  under  the  sun. 

•  ••••• 

I  wish  he  would  come  back.  Why  did  he 
go?  Who  can  ever  explain  it?  I  am  lonely 
now,  and  depressed  with  grave  forebodings  — 
frightened  by  terrors  that  are  of  the  mind  and 
that  put  at  naught  all  that  my  mind  has  ever 
conceived.  Form  is  mutable.  This  is  the  last 
word  of  positive  science.  The  dead  do  not 
come  back.  This  is  incontrovertible.  The 
dead  are  dead,  and  that  is  the  end  of  it,  and  of 
them.  And  yet  I  have  had  experiences  here 
—  here,  in  this  very  room,  at  this  very  desk, 
that —  But  wait.  Let  me  put  it  down  in 
black  and  white,  in  words  simple  and  unmis 
takable.  Let  me  ask  some  questions.  Who 
mislays  my  pen?  That  is  what  I  desire  to 
know.  Who  uses  up  my  ink  so  rapidly?  Not 
I.  And  yet  the  ink  goes. 

The  answer  to  these  questions  would  settle 


68     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

all  the  enigmas  of  the  universe.  I  know  the 
answer.  I  am  not  a  fool.  And  some  day,  if 
I  am  plagued  too  desperately,  I  shall  give  the 
answer  myself.  I  shall  give  the  name  of  him 
who  mislays  my  pen  and  uses  up  my  ink.  It  is 
so  silly  to  think  that  I  could  use  such  a  quantity 
of  ink.  The  servant  lies.  I  know. 

I  have  got  me  a  fountain  pen.  I  have  al 
ways  disliked  the  device,  but  my  old  stub  had 
to  go.  I  burned  it  in  the  fireplace.  The  ink  I 
keep  under  lock  and  key.  I  shall  see  if  I  can 
not  put  a  stop  to  these  lies  that  are  being  written 
about  me.  And  I  have  other  plans.  It  is  not 
true  that  I  have  recanted.  I  still  believe  that  I 
live  in  a  mechanical  universe.  It  has  not  been 
proved  otherwise  to  me,  for  all  that  I  have 
peered  over  his  shoulder  and  read  his  malicious 
statement  to  the  contrary.  He  gives  me  credit 
for  no  less  than  average  stupidity.  He  thinks 
I  think  he  is  real.  How  silly.  I  know  he  is  a 
brain-figment,  nothing  more. 

There    are    such    things    as    hallucinations. 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      69 

Even  as  I  looked  over  his  shoulder  and  read, 
I  knew  that  this  was  such  a  thing.  If  I  were 
only  well  it  would  be  interesting.  All  my  life 
I  have  wanted  to  experience  such  phenomena. 
And  now  it  has  come  to  me.  I  shall  make  the 
most  of  it.  What  is  imagination?  It  can 
make  something  where  there  is  nothing.  How 
can  anything  be  something  where  there  is  noth 
ing?  How  can  anything  be  something  and 
nothing  at  the  same  time?  I  leave  it  for  the 
metaphysicians  to  ponder.  I  know  better. 
No  scholastics  for  me.  This  is  a  real  world, 
and  everything  in  it  is  real.  What  is  not  real, 
is  not.  Therefore  he  is  not.  Yet  he  tries  to 
fool  me  into  believing  that  he  is  ...  when  all 
the  time  I  know  he  has  no  existence  outside  of 
my  own  brain  cells. 

I  saw  him  to-day,  seated  at  the  desk,  writing. 
It  gave  me  quite  a  shock,  because  I  had  thought 
he  was  quite  dispelled.  Nevertheless,  on  look 
ing  steadily,  I  found  that  he  was  not  there  — 
the  old  familiar  trick  of  the  brain.  I  have 


70     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

dwelt  too  long  on  what  has  happened.  I  am 
becoming  morbid,  and  my  old  indigestion  is  hint 
ing  and  muttering.  I  shall  take  exercise. 
Each  day  I  shall  walk  for  two  hours. 

It  is  impossible.  I  cannot  exercise.  Each 
time  I  return  from  my  walk,  he  is  sitting  in  my 
chair  at  the  desk.  It  grows  more  difficult  to 
drive  him  away.  It  is  my  chair.  Upon  this 
I  insist  It  was  his,  but  he  is  dead  and  it  is  no 
longer  his.  How  one  can  be  befooled  by  the 
phantoms  of  his  own  imagining!  There  is 
nothing  real  in  this  apparition.  I  know  it.  I 
am  firmly  grounded  with  my  fifty  years  of 
study.  The  dead  are  dead. 

•  ••••• 

And  yet,  explain  one  thing.  To-day,  before 
going  for  my  walk,  I  carefully  put  the  fountain 
pen  in  my  pocket  before  leaving  the  room.  I 
remember  it  distinctly.  I  looked  at  the  clock 
at  the  time.  It  was  twenty  minutes  past  ten. 
Yet  on  my  return  there  was  the  pen  lying  on 
the  desk.  Some  one  had  been  using  it.  There 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      71 

was  very  little  ink  left.     I  wish  he  would  not 
write  so  much.     It  is  disconcerting. 

There  was  one  thing  upon  which  Jim  and  I 
were  not  quite  agreed.  He  believed  in  the 
eternity  of  the  forms  of  things.  Therefore, 
entered  in  immediately  the  consequent  belief  in 
immortality,  and  all  the  other  notions  of  the 
metaphysical  philosophers.  I  had  little  pa 
tience  with  him  in  this.  Painstakingly  I  have 
traced  to  him  the  evolution  of  his  belief  in  the 
eternity  of  forms,  showing  him  how  it  has 
arisen  out  of  his  early  infatuation  with  logic  and 
mathematics.  Of  course,  from  that  warped, 
squinting,  abstract  view-point,  it  is  very  easy  to 
believe  in  the  eternity  of  forms. 

I  laughed  at  the  unseen  world.  Only  the 
real  was  real,  I  contended,  and  what  one  did 
not  perceive,  was  not,  could  not  be.  I  believed 
in  a  mechanical  universe.  Chemistry  and 
physics  explained  everything.  "  Can  no  being 
be?"  he  demanded  in  reply.  I  said  that  his 
question  was  but  the  major  promise  of  a  falla 
cious  Christian  Science  syllogism.  Oh,  believe 


72     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

me,  I  know  my  logic,  too.  But  he  was  very 
stubborn.  I  never  had  any  patience  with 
philosophic  idealists. 

Once,  I  made  to  him  my  confession  of  faith. 
It  was  simple,  brief,  unanswerable.  Even  as  I 
write  it  now  I  know  that  it  is  unanswerable. 
Here  it  is.  I  told  him :  "  I  assert,  with 
Hobbes,  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  thought 
from  matter  that  thinks.  I  assert,  with  Bacon, 
that  all  human  understanding  arises  from  the 
world  of  sensations.  I  assert,  with  Locke,  that 
all  human  ideas  are  due  to  the  functions  of  the 
senses.  I  assert,  with  Kant,  the  mechanical 
origin  of  the  universe,  and  that  creation  is  a 
natural  and  historical  process.  I  assert,  with 
Laplace,  that  there  is  no  need  of  the  hypothesis 
of  a  creator.  And,  finally,  I  assert,  because  of 
all  the  foregoing,  that  form  is  ephemeral. 
Form  passes.  Therefore  we  pass." 

I  repeat,  it  was  unanswerable.  Yet  did  he 
answer  with  Paley's  notorious  fallacy  of  the 
watch.  Also,  he  talked  about  radium,  and  all 
but  asserted  that  the  very  existence  of  matter 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      73 

had  been  exploded  by  these  later-day  labora 
tory  researches.  It  was  childish.  I  had  not 
dreamed  he  could  be  so  immature. 

How  could  one  argue  with  such  a  man?  I 
then  asserted  the  reasonableness  of  all  that  is. 
To  this  he  agreed,  reserving,  however,  one  ex 
ception.  He  looked  at  me,  as  he  said  it,  in  a 
way  I  could  not  mistake.  The  inference  was 
obvious.  That  he  should  be  guilty  of  so  cheap 
a  quip  in  the  midst  of  a  serious  discussion, 
astounded  me. 

•  ••••• 

The  eternity  of  forms.  It  is  ridiculous. 
Yet  is  there  a  strange  magic  in  the  words.  If 
it  be  true,  then  has  he  not  ceased  to  exist. 
Then  does  he  exist.  This  is  impossible. 

I  have  ceased  exercising.  As  long  as  I  re 
main  in  the  room,  the  hallucination  does  not 
bother  me.  But  when  I  return  to  the  room 
after  an  absence,  he  is  always  there,  sitting  at 
the  desk,  writing.  Yet  I  dare  not  confide  in  a 
physician.  I  must  fight  this  out  by  myself. 


74     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

He  grows  more  importunate.  To-day,  con 
sulting  a  book  on  the  shelf,  I  turned  and  found 
him  again  in  the  chair.  This  is  the  first  time 
he  has  dared  do  this  in  my  presence.  Never 
theless,  by  looking  at  him  steadily  and  sternly 
for  several  minutes,  I  compelled  him  to  vanish. 
This  proves  my  contention.  He  does  not  exist. 
If  he  were  an  eternal  form  I  could  not  make 
him  vanish  by  a  mere  effort  of  my  will. 

This  is  getting  damnable.  To-day  I  gazed 
at  him  for  an  entire  hour  before  I  could  make 
him  leave.  Yet  it  is  so  simple.  What  I  see 
is  a  memory  picture.  For  twenty  years  I  was 
accustomed  to  seeing  him  there  at  the  desk. 
The  present  phenomenon  is  merely  a  recrudes 
cence  of  that  memory  picture  —  a  picture  which 
was  impressed  countless  times  on  my  conscious 
ness. 

I  gave  up  to-day.  He  exhausted  me,  and 
still  he  would  not  go.  I  sat  and  watched  him 
hour  after  hour.  He  takes  no  notice  of  me, 
but  continually  writes.  I  know  what  he  writes, 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      75 

for  I  read  it  over  his  shoulder.     It  is  not  true. 

He  is  taking  an  unfair  advantage. 

•  ••••• 

Query:  He  is  a  product  of  my  consciousness; 
is  it  possible,  then,  that  entities  may  be  created 

by  consciousness? 

•  ••••• 

We  did  not  quarrel.  To  this  day  I  do  not 
know  how  it  happened.  Let  me  tell  you. 
Then  you  will  see.  We  sat  up  late  that  never- 
to-be-forgotten  last  night  of  his  existence.  It 
was  the  old,  old  discussion  —  the  eternity  of 
forms.  How  many  hours  and  how  many  nights 
we  had  consumed  over  it! 

On  this  night  he  had  been  particularly  irritat 
ing,  and  all  my  nerves  were  screaming.  He 
had  been  maintaining  that  the  human  soul  was 
itself  a  form,  an  eternal  form,  and  that  the 
light  within  his  brain  would  go  on  forever  and 
always.  I  took  up  the  poker. 

"  Suppose,"  I  said,  "  I  should  strike  you  dead 
with  this?  " 

"  I  would  go  on,"  he  answered. 

"  As  a  conscious  entity?"  I  demanded. 

"  Yes,  as  a  conscious  entity,"  was  his  reply. 


76      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

''  I  should  go  on,  from  plane  to  plane  of  higher 
existence,  remembering  my  earth-life,  you,  this 
very  argument  —  ay,  and  continuing  the  argu 
ment  with  you." 

It  was  only  argument.*  I  swear  it  was  only 
argument.  I  never  lifted  a  hand.  How  could 
I  ?  He  was  my  brother,  my  elder  brother,  Jim. 

I  cannot  remember.  I  was  very  exasper 
ated.  He  had  always  been  so  obstinate  in  this 
metaphysical  belief  of  his.  The  next  I  knew, 
he  was  lying  on  the  hearth.  Blood  was  run 
ning.  It  was  terrible.  He  did  not  speak. 
He  did  not  move.  He  must  have  fallen  in  a 
fit  and  struck  his  head.  I  noticed  there  was 
blood  on  the  poker.  In  falling  he  must  have 
struck  upon  it  with  his  head.  And  yet  I  fail 
to  see  how  this  can  be,  for  I  held  it  in  my  hand 
all  the  time.  I  was  still  holding  it  in  my  hand 
as  I  looked  at  it. 

It  is  an  hallucination.  That  is  a  conclusion 
of  common  sense.  I  have  watched  the  growth 
of  it.  At  first  it  was  only  in  the  dimmest  light 

*  (Forcible  —  ha!  ha!  —  comment  of  Rudolph  Heckler  on 
margin.) 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      77 

that  I  could  see  him  sitting  in  the  chair.  But 
as  the  time  passed,  and  the  hallucination,  by 
repetition,  strengthened,  he  was  able  to  appear 
in  the  chair  under  the  strongest  lights.  That 
is  the  explanation.  It  is  quite  satisfactory. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  first  time  I  saw  it. 
I  had  dined  alone  downstairs.  I  never  drink 
wine,  so  that  what  happened  was  eminently 
normal.  It  was  in  the  summer  twilight  that  I 
returned  to  the  study.  I  glanced  at  the  desk. 
There  he  was,  sitting.  So  natural  was  it,  that 
before  I  knew  I  cried  out  "Jim!"  Then  I 
remembered  all  that  had  happened.  Of  course 
it  was  an  hallucination.  I  knew  that.  I  took 
the  poker  and  went  over  to  it.  He  did  not 
move  nor  vanish.  The  poker  cleaved  through 
the  non-existent  substance  of  the  thing  and 
struck  the  back  of  the  chair.  Fabric  of  fancy, 
that  is  all  it  was.  The  mark  is  there  on  the 
chair  now  where  the  poker  struck.  I  pause 
from  my  writing  and  turn  and  look  at  it  — 
press  the  tips  of  my  fingers  into  the  indentation. 


78      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

He  did  continue  the  argument.  I  stole  up 
to-day  and  looked  over  his  shoulder.  He  was 
writing  the  history  of  our  discussion.  It  was 
the  same  old  nonsense  about  the  eternity  of 
forms.  But  as  I  continued  to  read,  he  wrote 
down  the  practical  test  I  had  made  with  the 
poker.  Now  this  is  unfair  and  untrue.  I 
made  no  test.  In  falling  he  struck  his  head  on 
the  poker. 

Some  day,  somebody  will  find  and  read  what 
he  writes.  This  will  be  terrible.  I  am  sus 
picious  of  the  servant,  who  is  always  peeping 
and  peering,  trying  to  see  what  I  write.  I 
must  do  something.  Every  servant  I  have  had 
is  curious  about  what  I  write. 

Fabric  of  fancy.  That  is  all  it  is.  There 
is  no  Jim  who  sits  in  the  chair.  I  know  that. 
Last  night,  when  the  house  was  asleep,  I  went 
down  into  the  cellar  and  looked  carefully  at  the 
soil  around  the  chimney.  It  was  untampered 
with.  The  dead  do  not  rise  up. 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      79 

Yesterday  morning,  when  I  entered  the  study, 
there  he  was  in  the  chair.  When  I  had  dis 
pelled  him,  I  sat  in  the  chair  myself  all  day. 
I  had  my  meals  brought  to  me.  And  thus  I 
escaped  the  sight  of  him  for  many  hours,  for 
he  appears  only  in  the  chair.  I  was  weary,  but 
I  sat  late,  until  eleven  o'clock.  Yet,  when  I 
stood  up  to  go  to  bed,  I  looked  around,  and 
there  he  was.  He  had  slipped  into  the  chair 
on  the  instant.  Being  only  fabric  of  fancy,  all 
day  he  had  resided  in  my  brain.  The  moment 
it  was  unoccupied,  he  took  up  his  residence  in 
the  chair.  Are  these  his  boasted  higher  planes 
of  existence  —  his  brother's  brain  and  a  chair? 
After  all,  was  he  not  right?  Has  his  eternal 
form  become  so  attenuated  as  to  be  an  hallu 
cination?  Are  hallucinations  real  entities? 
Why  not?  There  is  food  for  thought  here. 
Some  day  I  shall  come  to  a  conclusion  upon 
it. 


He  was  very  much  disturbed  to-day.     He 
could  not  write,  for  I  had  made  the  servant 


8o      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

carry  the  pen  out  of  the  room  in  his  pocket. 
But  neither  could  I  write. 


The  servant  never  sees  him.  This  is  strange. 
Have  I  developed  a  keener  sight  for  the  un 
seen  ?  Or  rather  does  it  not  prove  the  phantom 
to  be  what  it  is  —  a  product  of  my  own  morbid 
consciousness? 

He  has  stolen  my  pen  again.  Hallucinations 
cannot  steal  pens.  This  is  unanswerable.  And 
yet  I  cannot  keep  the  pen  always  out  of  the 
room.  I  want  to  write  myself. 

I  have  had  three  different  servants  since  my 
trouble  came  upon  me,  and  not  one  has  seen 
him.  Is  the  verdict  of  their  senses  right? 
And  is  that  of  mine  wrong?  Nevertheless,  the 
ink  goes  too  rapidly.  I  fill  my  pen  more  often 
than  is  necessary.  And  furthermore,  only  to 
day  I  found  my  pen  out  of  order.  I  did  not 
break  it. 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      Si 

I  have  spoken  to  him  many  times,  but  he 
never  answers.  I  sat  and  watched  him  all 
morning.  Frequently  he  looked  at  me,  and  it 
was  patent  that  he  knew  me. 

By  striking  the  side  of  my  head  violently  with 
the  heel  of  my  hand,  I  can  shake  the  vision  of 
him  out  of  my  eyes.  Then  I  can  get  into  the 
chair;  but  I  have  learned  that  I  must  move  very 
quickly  in  order  to  accomplish  this.  Often  he 
fools  me  and  is  back  again  before  I  can  sit 
down. 

It  is  getting  unoearable.  He  is  a  jack-in-the- 
box  the  way  he  pops  into  the  chair.  He  does 
not  assume  form  slowly.  He  pops.  That  is 
the  only  way  to  describe  it.  I  cannot  stand 
looking  at  him  much  more.  That  way  lies  mad 
ness,  for  it  compels  me  almost  to  believe  in  the 
reality  of  what  I  know  is  not.  Besides,  hallu 
cinations  do  not  pop. 

Thank  God  he  only  manifests  himself  in  the 


82      THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

chair.     As  long  as  I  occupy  the  chair  I  am  quit 

of  him. 

•  ••••• 

My  device  for  dislodging  him  from  the  chair 
by  striking  my  head,  is  failing.  I  have  to  hit 
much  more  violently,  and  I  do  not  succeed  per 
haps  more  than  once  in  a  dozen  trials.  My 
head  is  quite  sore  where  I  have  so  repeatedly 
struck  it.  I  must  use  the  other  hand. 

My  brother  was  right  There  is  an  unseen 
world.  Do  I  not  see  it?  Am  I  not  cursed 
with  the  seeing  of  it  all  the  time?  Call  it  a 
thought,  an  idea,  anything  you  will,  still  it  is 
there.  It  is  unescapable.  Thoughts  are  en 
tities.  We  create  with  every  act  of  thinking. 
I  have  created  this  phantom  that  sits  in  my  chair 
and  uses  my  ink.  Because  I  have  created  him 
is  no  reason  that  he  is  any  the  less  real.  He 
is  an  idea;  he  is  an  entity:  ergo,  ideas  are  en 
tities,  and  an  entity  is  a  reality. 

•  ••••• 

Query:  If  a  man,  with  the  whole  historical 
process  behind  him,  can  create  an  entity,  a  real 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      83 

thing,  then  is  not  the  hypothesis  of  a  Creator 
made  substantial?  If  the  stuff  of  life  can 
create,  then  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  there  can 
be  a  He  who  created  the  stuff  of  life.  It  is 
merely  a  difference  of  degree.  I  have  not  yet 
made  a  mountain  nor  a  solar  system,  but  I  have 
made  a  something  that  sits  in  my  chair.  This 
being  so,  may  I  not  some  day  be  able  to  make  a 
mountain  or  a  solar  system? 


All  his  days,  down  to  to-day,  man  has  lived 
in  a  maze.  He  has  never  seen  the  light.  I 
am  convinced  that  I  am  beginning  to  see  the 
light  —  not  as  my  brother  saw  it,  by  stumbling 
upon  it  accidentally,  but  deliberately  and  ra 
tionally.  My  brother  is  dead.  He  has  ceased. 
There  is  no  doubt  about  it,  for  I  have  made 
another  journey  down  into  the  cellar  to  see. 
The  ground  was  untouched.  I  broke  it  my 
self  to  make  sure,  and  I  saw  what  made  me 
sure.  My  brother  has  ceased,  yet  have  I  re 
created  him.  This  is  not  my  old  brother,  yet 
it  is  something  as  nearly  resembling  him  as  I 


84      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

could  fashion  it.     I  am  unlike  other  men.     I 
am  a  god.     I  have  created. 

Whenever  I  leave  the  room  to  go  to  bed,  I 
look  back,  and  there  is  my  brother  sitting  in 
the  chair.  And  then  I  cannot  sleep  because  of 
thinking  o-f  him  sitting  through  all  the  long 
night-hours.  And  in  the  morning,  when  I  open 
the  study  door,  there  he  is,  and  I  know  he  has 
sat  there  the  night  long. 

I  am  becoming  desperate  from  lack  of  sleep. 
I  wish  I  could  confide  in  a  physician. 

Blessed  sleep  1  I  have  won  to  it  at  last. 
Let  me  tell  you.  Last  night  I  was  so  worn  that 
I  found  myself  dozing  in  my  chair.  I  rang  for 
the  servant  and  ordered  him  to  bring  blankets. 
I  slept.  All  night  was  he  banished  from  my 
thoughts  as  he  was  banished  from  my  chair.  I 
shall  remain  in  it  all  day.  It  is  a  wonderful 
relief. 


THE  ETERNITY  OF  FORMS      85 

It  is  uncomfortable  to  sleep  in  a  chair.  But 
it  is  more  uncomfortable  to  lie  in  bed,  hour 
after  hour,  and  not  sleep,  and  to  know  that  he 
is  sitting  there  in  the  cold  darkness. 

It  is  no  use.  I  shall  never  be  able  to  sleep 
in  a  bed  again.  I  have  tried  it  now,  numerous 
times,  and  every  such  night  is  a  horror.  If  I 
could  but  only  persuade  him  to  go  to  bed !  But 
no.  He  sits  there,  and  sits  there  —  I  know  he 
does  —  while  I  stare  and  stare  up  into  the 
blackness  and  think  and  think,  continually 
think,  of  him  sitting  there.  I  wish  I  had  never 
heard  of  the  eternity  of  forms. 

The  servants  think  I  am  crazy.  That  is  but 
to  be  expected,  and  it  is  why  I  have  never  called 
in  a  physician. 

I  am  resolved.  Henceforth  this  hallucina 
tion  ceases.  From  now  on  I  shall  remain  in 
the  chair.  I  shall  never  leave  it.  I  shall  re 
main  in  it  night  and  day  and  always. 


86      THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

I  have  succeeded.  For  two  weeks  I  have  not 
seen  him.  Nor  shall  I  ever  see  him  again.  I 
have  at  last  attained  the  equanimity  of  mind 
necessary  for  philosophic  thought.  I  wrote  a 
complete  chapter  to-day. 

It  is  very  wearisome,  sitting  in  a  chair.  The 
weeks  pass,  the  months  come  and  go,  the  seasons 
change,  the  servants  replace  each  other,  while 
I  remain.  I  only  remain.  It  is  a  strange  life 
I  lead,  but  at  least  I  am  at  peace. 

•  •  •  •  .  • 

He  comes  no  more.  There  is  no  eternity  of 
forms.  I  have  proved  it.  For  nearly  two 
years  now,  I  have  remained  in  this  chair,  and  I 
have  not  seen  him  once.  True,  I  was  severely 
tried  for  a  time.  But  it  is  clear  that  what  I 
thought  I  saw  was  merely  hallucination.  He 
never  was.  Yet  I  do  not  leave  the  chair.  I 
am  afraid  to  leave  the  chair. 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD 

ME?  I'm  not  a  drooler.  I'm  the  assist 
ant.  I  don't  know  what  Miss  Jones  or 
Miss  Kelsey  could  do  without  me.  There  are 
fifty-five  low-grade  droolers  in  this  ward,  and 
how  could  they  ever  all  be  fed  if  I  wasn't 
around?  I  like  to  feed  droolers.  They 
don't  make  trouble.  They  can't.  Something's 
wrong  with  most  of  their  legs  and  arms,  and 
they  can't  talk.  They're  very  low-grade.  I 
can  walk,  and  talk,  and  do  things.  You  must 
be  careful  with  the  droolers  and  not  feed  them 
too  fast.  Then  they  choke.  Miss  Jones  says 
I'm  an  expert.  When  a  new  nurse  comes  I 
show  her  how  to  do  it.  It's  funny  watching  a 
new  nurse  try  to  feed  them.  She  goes  at  it  so 
slow  and  careful  that  supper  time  would  be 
around  before  she  finished  shoving  down  their 
breakfast.  Then  I  show  her,  because  I'm  an 
expert.  Dr.  Dalrymple  says  I  am,  and  he 

87 


88      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

ought  to  know.  A  drooler  can  eat  twice  as 
fast  if  you  know  how  to  make  him. 

My  name's  Tom.  I'm  twenty-eight  years 
old.  Everybody  knows  me  in  the  institution. 
This  is  an  institution,  you  know.  It  belongs  to 
the  State  of  California  and  is  run  by  politics. 
I  know.  I've  been  here  a  long  time.  Every 
body  trusts  me.  I  run  errands  all  over  the 
place,  when  I'm  not  busy  with  the  droolers.  I 
like  droolers.  It  makes  me  think  how  lucky 
I  am  that  I  ain't  a  drooler. 

I  like  it  here  in  the  Home.  I  don't  like  the 
outside.  I  know.  I've  been  around  a  bit,  and 
run  away,  and  adopted.  Me  for  the  Home, 
and  for  the  drooling  ward  best  of  all.  I  don't 
look  like  a  drooler,  do  I?  You  can  tell  the 
difference  soon  as  you  look  at  me.  I'm  an  as 
sistant,  expert  assistant.  That's  going  some 
for  a  feeb.  Feeb?  Oh,  that's  feeble-minded. 
I  thought  you  knew.  We're  all  feebs  in  here. 

But  I'm  a  high-grade  feeb.  Dr.  Dalrymple 
says  I'm  too  smart  to  be  in  the  Home,  but  I 
never  let  on.  It's  a  pretty  good  place.  And  I 
don't  throw  fits  like  lots  of  the  feebs.  You 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD    89 

see  that  house  up  there  through  the  trees. 
The  high-grade  epilecs  all  live  in  it  by  them 
selves.  They're  stuck  up  because  they  ain't 
just  ordinary  feebs.  They  call  it  the  club 
house,  and  they  say  they're  just  as  good  as  any 
body  outside,  only  they're  sick.  I  don't  like 
them  much.  They  laugh  at  me,  when  they 
ain't  busy  throwing  fits.  But  I  don't  care.  I 
never  have  to  be  scared  about  falling  down  and 
busting  my  head.  Sometimes  they  run  around 
in  circles  trying  to  find  a  place  to  sit  down  quick, 
only  they  don't.  Low-grade  epilecs  are  dis 
gusting,  and  high-grade  epilecs  put  on  airs. 
I'm  glad  I  ain't  an  epilec.  There  ain't  any 
thing  to  them.  They  just  talk  big,  that's  all. 

Miss  Kelsey  says  I  talk  too  much.  But  I 
talk  sense,  and  that's  more  than  the  other  feebs 
do.  Dr.  Dalrymple  says  I  have  the  gift  of 
language.  I  know  it.  You  ought  to  hear  me 
talk  when  Fm  by  myself,  or  when  I've  got  a 
drooler  to  listen.  Sometimes  I  think  I'd  like 
to  be  a  politician,  only  it's  too  much  trouble. 
They're  all  great  talkers;  that's  how  they  hold 
their  jobs. 


90      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Nobody's  crazy  in  this  institution.  They're 
just  feeble  in  their  minds.  Let  me  tell  you 
something  funny.  There's  about  a  dozen  high- 
grade  girls  that  set  the  tables  in  the  big  dining 
room.  Sometimes  when  they're  done  ahead  of 
time,  they  all  sit  down  in  chairs  in  a  circle  and 
talk.  I  sneak  up  to  the  door  and  listen,  and  I 
nearly  die  to  keep  from  laughing.  Do  you 
want  to  know  what  they  talk?  It's  like  this. 
They  don't  say  a  word  for  a  long  time.  And 
then  one  says,  "  Thank  God  I'm  not  feeble 
minded."  And  all  the  rest  nod  their  heads  and 
look  pleased.  And  then  nobody  says  anything 
for  a  time.  After  which  the  next  girl  in  the 
circle  says,  "  Thank  God  I'm  not  feeble 
minded,"  and  they  nod  their  heads  all  over 
again.  And  it  goes  on  around  the  circle,  and 
they  never  say  anything  else.  Now  they're  real 
feebs,  ain't  they?  I  leave  it  to  you.  I'm  not 
that  kind  of  a  feeb,  thank  God. 

Sometimes  I  don't  think  I'm  a  feeb  at  all.  I 
play  in  the  band  and  read  music.  We're  all 
supposed  to  be  feebs  in  the  band  except  the 
leader.  He's  crazy.  We  know  it,  but  we 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD    91 

never  talk  about  it  except  amongst  ourselves. 
His  job  is  politics,  too,  and  we  don't  want  him 
to  lose  it.  I  play  the  drum.  They  can't  get 
along  without  me  in  this  institution.  I  was  sick 
once,  so  I  know.  It's  a  wonder  the  drooling 
ward  didn't  break  down  while  I  was  in  hospital. 

I  could  get  out  of  here  if  I  wanted  to.  I'm 
not  so  feeble  as  some  might  think.  But  I  don't 
let  on.  I  have  too  good  a  time.  Besides, 
everything  would  run  down  if  I  went  away. 
I'm  afraid  some  time  they'll  find  out  I'm  not  a 
feeb  and  send  me  out  into  the  world  to  earn  my 
own  living.  I  know  the  world,  and  I  don't  like 
it.  The  Home  is  fine  enough  for  me. 

You  see  how  I  grin  sometimes.  I  can't  help 
that.  But  I  can  put  it  on  a  lot.  I'm  not  bad, 
though.  I  look  at  myself  in  the  glass.  My 
mouth  is  funny,  I  know  that,  and  it  lops  down, 
and  my  teeth  are  bad.  You  can  tell  a  feeb  any 
where  by  looking  at  his  mouth  and  teeth.  But 
that  doesn't  prove  I'm  a  feeb.  It's  just  because 
I'm  lucky  that  I  look  like  one. 

I  know  a  lot.  If  I  told  you  all  I  know,  you'd 
be  surprised.  But  when  I  don't  want  to  know, 


92      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

or  when  they  want  me  to  do  something  I  don't 
want  to  do,  I  just  let  my  mouth  lop  down  and 
laugh  and  make  foolish  noises.  I  watch  the 
foolish  noises  made  by  the  low-grades,  and  I  can 
fool  anybody.  And  I  know  a  lot  of  foolish 
noises.  Miss  Kelsey  called  me  a  fool  the  other 
day.  She  was  very  angry,  and  that  was  where  I 
fooled  her. 

Miss  Kelsey  asked  me  once  why  I  don't  write 
a  book  about  feebs.  I  was  telling  her  what  was 
the  matter  with  little  Albert.  He's  a  drooler, 
you  know,  and  I  can  always  tell  the  way  he 
twists  his  left  eye  what's  the  matter  with  him. 
So  I  was  explaining  it  to  Miss  Kelsey,  and,  be 
cause  she  didn't  know,  it  made  her  mad.  But 
some  day,  mebbe,  I'll  write  that  book.  Only 
it's  so  much  trouble.  Besides,  I'd  sooner 
talk. 

Do  you  know  what  a  micro  is?  It's  the  kind 
with  the  little  heads  no  bigger  than  your  fist. 
They're  usually  droolers,  and  they  live  a  long 
time.  The  hydros  don't  drool.  They  have  the 
big  heads,  and  they're  smarter.  But  they  never 
grow  up.  They  always  die.  I  never  look  at 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD    93 

one  without  thinking  he's  going  to  die.  Some 
times,  when  I'm  feeling  lazy,  or  the  nurse  is  mad 
at  me,  I  wish  I  was  a  drooler  with  nothing  to  do 
and  somebody  to  feed  me.  But  I  guess  I'd 
sooner  talk  and  be  what  I  am. 

Only  yesterday  Doctor  Dalrymple  said  to  me, 
"  Tom,"  he  said,  "  I  just  don't  know  what  I'd 
do  without  you."  And  he  ought  to  know,  see 
ing  as  he's  had  the  bossing  of  a  thousand  feebs 
for  going  on  two  years.  Dr.  Whatcomb  was 
before  him.  They  get  appointed,  you  know. 
It's  politics.  I've  seen  a  whole  lot  of  doctors 
here  in  my  time.  I  was  here  before  any  of 
them.  I've  been  in  this  institution  twenty-five 
years.  No,  I've  got  no  complaints.  The  insti 
tution  couldn't  be  run  better. 

It's  a  snap  to  be  a  high-grade  feeb.  Just 
look  at  Doctor  Dalrymple.  He  has  troubles. 
He  holds  his  job  by  politics.  You  bet  we  high- 
graders  talk  politics.  We  know  all  about  it, 
and  it's  bad.  An  institution  like  this  oughtn't 
to  be  run  on  politics.  Look  at  Doctor  Dalrym 
ple.  He's  been  here  two  years  and  learned  a 
lot.  Then  politics  will  come  along  and  throw 


94      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

him  out  and  send  a  new  doctor  who  don't  know 
anything  about  feebs. 

I've  been  acquainted  with  just  thousands  of 
nurses  in  my  time.  Some  of  them  are  nice. 
But  they  come  and  go.  Most  of  the  women  get 
married.  Sometimes  I  think  I'd  like  to  get 
married.  I  spoke  to  Dr.  Whatcomb  about  it 
once,  but  he  told  me  he  was  very  sorry,  because 
feebs  ain't  allowed  to  get  married.  I've  been 
in  love.  She  was  a  nurse.  I  won't  tell  you 
her  name.  She  had  blue  eyes,  and  yellow  hair, 
and  a  kind  voice,  and  she  liked  me.  She  told 
me  so.  And  she  always  told  me  to  be  a  good 
boy.  And  I  was,  too,  until  afterward,  and  then 
I  ran  away.  You  see,  she  went  off  and  got 
married,  and  she  didn't  tell  me  about  it. 

I  guess  being  married  ain't  what  it's  cracked 
up  to  be.  Dr.  Anglin  and  his  wife  used  to  fight. 
I've  seen  them.  And  once  I  heard  her  call  him 
a  feeb.  Now  nobody  has  a  right  to  call  any 
body  a  feeb  that  ain't.  Dr.  Anglin  got  awful 
mad  when  she  called  him  that.  But  he  didn't 
last  long.  Politics  drove  him  out,  and  Doctor 
Mandeville  came.  He  didn't  have  a  wife.  I 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD    95 

heard  him  talking  one  time  with  the  engineer. 
The  engineer  and  his-  wife  fought  like  cats  and 
dogs,  and  that  day  Doctor  Mandeville  told  him 
he  was  damn  glad  he  wasn't  tied  to  no  petti 
coats.  A  petticoat  is  a  skirt.  I  knew  what  he 
meant,  if  I  was  a  feeb.  But  I  never  let  on. 
You  hear  lots  when  you  don't  let  on. 

I've  seen  a  lot  in  my  time.  Once  I  was 
adopted,  and  went  away  on  the  railroad  over 
forty  miles  to  live  with  a  man  named  Peter 
Bopp  and  his  wife.  They  had  a  ranch.  Doc 
tor  Anglin  said  I  was  strong  and  bright,  and  I 
said  I  was,  too.  That  was  because  I  wanted  to 
be  adopted.  And  Peter  Bopp  said  he'd  give  me 
a  good  home,  and  the  lawyers  fixed  up  the 
papers. 

But  I  soon  made  up  my  mind  that  a  ranch  was 
no  place  for  me.  Mrs.  Bopp  was  scared  to 
death  of  me  and  wouldn't  let  me  sleep  in  the 
house.  They  fixed  up  the  woodshed  and  made 
me  sleep  there.  I  had  to  get  up  at  four  o'clock 
and  feed  the  horses,  and  milk  cows,  and  carry 
the  milk  to  the  neighbours.  They  called  it 
chores,  but  it  kept  me  going  all  day.  I  chopped 


96     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

wood,  and  cleaned  chicken  houses,  and  weeded 
vegetables,  and  did  most  everything  on  the 
place.  I  never  had  any  fun.  I  hadn't  no  time. 

Let  me  tell  you  one  thing.  I'd  sooner  feed 
mush  and  milk  to  feebs  than  milk  cows  with  the 
frost  on  the  ground.  Mrs.  Bopp  was  scared  to 
let  me  play  with  her  children.  And  I  was 
scared,  too.  They  used  to  make  faces  at 
me  when  nobody  was  looking,  and  call  me 
"  Looney."  Everybody  called  me  Looney 
Tom.  And  the  other  boys  in  the  neighbour 
hood  threw  rocks  at  me.  You  never  see  any 
thing  like  that  in  the  Home  here.  The  feebs 
are  better  behaved. 

Mrs.  Bopp  used  to  pinch  me  and  pull  my  hair 
when  she  thought  I  was  too  slow,  and  I  only 
made  foolish  noises  and  went  slower.  She  said 
I'd  be  the  death  of  her  some  day.  I  left  the 
boards  off  the  old  well  in  the  pasture,  and  the 
pretty  new  calf  fell  in  and  got  drowned.  Then 
Peter  Bopp  said  he  was  going  to  give  me  a  lick 
ing.  He  did,  too.  He  took  a  strap  halter  and 
went  at  me.  It  was  awful.  I'd  never  had  a 
licking  in  my  life.  They  don't  do  such  things 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD    97 

in  the  Home,  which  is  why  I  say  the  Home  is 
the  place  for  me. 

I  know  the  law,  and  I  knew  he  had  no  right 
to  lick  me  with  a  strap  halter.  That  was  being 
cruel,  and  the  guardianship  papers  said  he 
mustn't  be  cruel.  I  didn't  say  anything.  I  just 
waited,  which  shows  you  what  kind  of  a  feeb  I 
am.  I  waited  a  long  time,  and  got  slower,  and 
made  more  foolish  noises;  but  he  wouldn't  send 
me  back  to  the  Home,  which  was  what  I  wanted. 
But  one  day,  it  was  the  first  of  the  month,  Mrs. 
Brown  gave  me  three  dollars,  which  was  for  her 
milk  bill  with  Peter  Bopp.  That  was  in  the 
morning.  When  I  brought  the  milk  in  the  eve 
ning  I  was  to  bring  back  the  receipt.  But  I 
didn't.  I  just  walked  down  to  the  station, 
bought  a  ticket  like  any  one,  and  rode  on  the 
train  back  to  the  Home.  That's  the  kind  of  a 
feeb  I  am. 

Doctor  Anglin  was  gone  then,  and  Doctor 
Mandeville  had  his  place.  I  walked  right  into 
his  office.  He  didn't  know  me.  "  Hello,"  he 
said,  "  this  ain't  visiting  day."  "  I  ain't  a  visi 
tor,"  I  said.  "I'm  Tom.  I  belong  here." 


98      THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Then  he  whistled  and  showed  he  was  surprised. 
I  told  him  all  about  it,  and  showed  him  the 
marks  of  the  strap  halter,  and  he  got  madder 
and  madder  all  the  time  and  said  he'd  attend  to 
Mr.  Peter  Bopp's  case. 

And  mebbe  you  think  some  of  them  little 
droolers  weren't  glad  to  see  me. 

I  walked  right  into  the  ward.  There  was 
a  new  nurse  feeding  little  Albert.  "  Hold  on," 
I  said.  "  That  ain't  the  way.  Don't  you  see 
how  he's  twisting  that  left  eye?  Let  me  show 
you."  Mebbe  she  thought  I  was  a  new  doctor, 
for  she  just  gave  me  the  spoon,  and  I  guess  I 
filled  little  Albert  up  with  the  most  comfortable 
meal  he'd  had  since  I  went  away.  Droolers 
ain't  bad  when  you  understand  them.  I  heard 
Miss  Jones  tell  Miss  Kelsey  once  that  I  had  an 
amazing  gift  in  handling  droolers. 

Some  day,  mebbe,  I'm  going  to  talk  with 
Doctor  Dalrymple  and  get  him  to  give  me  a 
declaration  that  I  ain't  a  feeb.  Then  I'll  get 
him  to  make  me  a  real  assistant  in  the  drooling 
ward,  with  forty  dollars  a  month  and  my  board. 
And  then  I'll  marry  Miss  Jones  and  live  right  on 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD    99 

here.  And  if  she  won't  have  me,  I'll  marry 
Miss  Kelsey  or  some  other  nurse.  There's  lots 
of  them  that  want  to  get  married.  And  I  won't 
care  if  my  wife  gets  mad  and  calls  me  a  feeb. 
What's  the  good?  And  I  guess  when  one's 
learned  to  put  up  with  droolers  a  wife  won't  be 
much  worse. 

I  didn't  tell  you  about  when  I  ran  away.  I 
hadn't  no  idea  of  such  a  thing,  and  it  was 
Charley  and  Joe  who  put  me  up  to  it.  They're 
high-grade  epilecs,  you  know.  I'd  been  up  to 
Doctor  Wilson's  office  with  a  message,  and  was 
going  back  to  the  drooling  ward,  when  I  saw 
Charley  and  Joe  hiding  around  the  corner  of 
the  gymnasium  and  making  motions  to  me.  I 
went  over  to  them. 

"  Hello,"  Joe  said.     "  How's  droolers?  " 
"  Fine,"  I  said.     "  Had  any  fits  lately?  " 
That  made  them  mad,  and  I  was  going  on, 
when  Joe  said,  "  We're  running  away.     Come 


on." 


"What  for?"  I  said. 

"  We're  going  up  over  the  top  of  the  rnoun- 
tain,"  Joe  said. 


ioo    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  And  find  a  gold  mine,"  said  Charley. 
u  We  don't  have  fits  any  more.  We're 
cured." 

"  All  right,"  I  said.  And  we  sneaked  around 
back  of  the  gymnasium  and  in  among  the  trees. 
Mebbe  we  walked  along  about  ten  minutes, 
when  I  stopped. 

"  What's  the  matter?  "  said  Joe. 

"  Wait,"  I  said.     "  I  got  to  go  back." 

"What  for?  "said  Joe. 

And  I  said,  "  To  get  little  Albert." 

And  they  said  I  couldn't,  and  got  mad.  But 
I  didn't  care.  I  knew  they'd  wait.  You  see, 
I've  been  here  twenty-five  years,  and  I  know  the 
back  trails  that  lead  up  the  mountain,  and 
Charley  and  Joe  didn't  know  those  trails. 
That's  why  they  wanted  me  to  come. 

So  I  went  back  and  got  little  Albert.  He 
can't  walk,  or  talk,  or  do  anything  except  drool, 
and  I  had  to  carry  him  in  my  arms.  We  went 
on  past  the  last  hayfield,  which  was  as  far  as  I'd 
ever  gone.  Then  the  woods  and  brush  got  so 
thick,  and  me  not  finding  any  more  trail,  we  fol 
lowed  the  cow-path  down  to  a  big  creek  and 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD     101 

crawled  through  the  fence  which  showed  where 
the  Home  land  stopped. 

We  climbed  up  the  big  hill  on  the  other  side 
of  the  creek.  It  was  all  big  trees,  and  no  brush, 
but  it  was  so  steep  and  slippery  with  dead  leaves 
we  could  hardly  walk.  By  and  by  we  came  to 
a  real  bad  place.  It  was  forty  feet  across,  and 
if  you  slipped  you'd  fall  a  thousand  feet,  or 
mebbe  a  hundred.  Anyway,  you  wouldn't  fall 
—  just  slide.  I  went  across  first,  carrying  little 
Albert.  Joe  came  next.  But  Charley  got 
scared  right  in  the  middle  and- sat  down. 

"  I'm  going  to  have  a  fit,"  he  said. 

"  No,  you're  not,"  said  Joe.  "  Because  if 
you  was  you  wouldn't  'a'  sat  down.  You  take 
all  your  fits  standing." 

"  This  is  a  different  kind  of  a  fit,"  said  Char 
ley,  beginning  to  cry. 

He  shook  and  shook,  but  just  because  he 
wanted  to  he  couldn't  scare  up  the  least  kind  of 
a  fit. 

Joe  got  mad  and  used  awful  language.  But 
that  didn't  help  none.  So  I  talked  soft  and 
kind  to  Charley.  That's  the  way  to  handle 


102   THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

feebs.  If  you  get  mad,  they  get  worse.  I 
know.  I'm  that  way  myself.  That's  why  I 
was  almost  the  death  of  Mrs.  Bopp.  She  got 
mad. 

It  was  getting  along  in  the  afternoon,  and  I 
knew  we  had  to  be  on  our  way,  so  I  said  to 
Joe: 

"  Here,  stop  your  cussing  and  hold  Albert. 
I'll  go  back  and  get  him." 

And  I  did,  too;  but  he  was  so  scared  and 
dizzy  he  crawled  along  on  hands  and  knees 
while  I  helped  him.  When  I  got  him  across 
and  took  Albert  back  in  my  arms,  I  heard  some 
body  laugh  and  looked  down.  And  there  was 
a  man  and  woman  on  horseback  looking  up  at 
us.  He  had  a  gun  on  his  saddle,  and  it  was  her 
who  was  laughing. 

"Who  in  hell's  that?"  said  Joe,  getting 
scared.  "  Somebody  to  catch  us?  " 

"  Shut  up  your  cussing,"  I  said  to  him. 
"  That  is  the  man  who  owns  this  ranch  and 
writes  books." 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Endicott,"  I  said 
down  to  him. 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD     103 

"Hello,"  he  said.  "  What  are  you  doing 
here?" 

"  We're  running  away,"  I  said. 

And  he  said,  "  Good  luck.  But  be  sure  and 
get  back  before  dark." 

"  But  this  is  a  real  running  away,"  I  said. 

And  then  both  he  and  his  wife  laughed. 

"  All  right,"  he  said.  "  Good  luck  just  the 
same.  But  watch  out  the  bears  and  mountain 
lions  don't  get  you  when  it  gets  dark." 

Then  they  rode  away  laughing,  pleasant  like; 
but  I  wished  he  hadn't  said  that  about  the  bears 
and  mountain  lions. 

After  we  got  around  the  hill,  I  found  a  trail, 
and  we  went  much  faster.  Charley  didn't  have 
any  more  signs  of  fits,  and  began  laughing  and 
talking  about  gold  mines.  The  trouble  was 
with  little  Albert.  He  was  almost  as  big  as 
me.  You  see,  all  the  time  I'd  been  calling  him 
little  Albert,  he'd  been  growing  up.  He  was 
so  heavy  I  couldn't  keep  up  with  Joe  and  Char 
ley.  I  was  all  out  of  breath.  So  I  told  them 
they'd  have  to  take  turns  in  carrying  him,  which 
they  said  they  wouldn't.  Then  I  said  I'd  leave 


io4    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

them  and  they'd  get  lost,  and  the  mountain  lions 
and  bears  would  eat  them.  Charley  looked 
like  he  was  going  to  have  a  fit  right  there,  and 
Joe  said,  "  Give  him  to  me."  And  after  that 
we  carried  him  in  turn. 

We  kept  right  on  up  that  mountain.  I  don't 
think  there  was  any  gold  mine,  but  we  might 
'a'  got  to  the  top  and  found  it,  if  we  hadn't  lost 
the  trail,  and  if  it  hadn't  got  dark,  and  if  little 
Albert  hadn't  tired  us  all  out  carrying  him. 
Lots  of  feebs  are  scared  of  the  dark,  and  Joe 
said  he  was  going  to  have  a  fit  right  there. 
Only  he  didn't.  I  never  saw  such  an  unlucky 
boy.  He  never  could  throw  a  fit  when  he 
wanted  to.  Some  of  the  feebs  can  throw  fits  as 
quick  as  a  wink. 

By  and  by  it  got  real  black,  and  we  were 
hungry,  and  we  didn't  have  no  fire.  You  see, 
they  don't  let  feebs  carry  matches,  and  all  we 
could  do  was  just  shiver.  And  we'd  never 
thought  about  being  hungry.  You  see,  feebs 
always  have  their  food  ready  for  them,  and 
that's  why  it's  better  to  be  a  feeb  than  earning 
your  living  in  the  world. 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD     105 

And  worse  than  everything  was  the  quiet. 
There  was  only  one  thing  worse,  and  it  was  the 
noises.  There  was  all  kinds  of  noises  every 
once  in  a  while,  with  quiet  spells  in  between.  I 
reckon  they  were  rabbits,  but  they  made  noises 
in  the  brush  like  wild  animals  —  you  know, 
rustle  rustle,  thump,  bump,  crackle  crackle,  just 
like  that.  First  Charley  got  a  fit,  a  real  one, 
and  Joe  threw  a  terrible  one.  I  don't  mind  fits 
in  the  Home  with  everybody  around.  But  out 
in  the  woods  on  a  dark  night  is  different.  You 
listen  to  me,  and  never  go  hunting  gold  mines 
with  epilecs,  even  if  they  are  high-grade. 

I  never  had  such  an  awful  night.  When  Joe 
and  Charley  weren't  throwing  fits  they  were 
making  believe,  and  in  the  darkness  the  shivers 
from  the  cold  which  I  couldn't  see  seemed  like 
fits,  too.  And  I  shivered  so  hard  I  thought  I 
was  getting  fits  myself.  And  little  Albert,  with 
nothing  to  eat,  just  drooled  and  drooled.  I 
never  seen  him  as  bad  as  that  before.  Why,  he 
twisted  that  left  eye  of  his  until  it  ought  to  have 
dropped  out.  I  couldn't  see  it,  but  I  could  tell 
from  the  movements  he  made.  And  Joe  just 


106    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

lay  and  cussed  and  cussed,  and  Charley  cried 
and  wished  he  was  back  in  the  Home. 

We  didn't  die,  and  next  morning  we  went 
right  back  the  way  we'd  come.  And  little  Al 
bert  got  awful  heavy.  Doctor  Wilson  was  mad 
as  could  be,  and  said  I  was  the  worst  feeb  in 
the  institution,  along  with  Joe  and  Charley. 
But  Miss  Striker,  who  was  a  nurse  in  the  drool 
ing  ward  then,  just  put  her  arms  around  me  and 
cried,  she  was  that  happy  I'd  got  back.  I 
thought  right  there  that  mebbe  I'd  marry  her. 
But  only  a  month  afterward  she  got  married  to 
the  plumber  that  came  up  from  the  city  to  fix 
the  gutter-pipes  of  the  new  hospital.  And  little 
Albert  never  twisted  his  eye  for  two  days,  it  was 
that  tired. 

Next  time  I  run  away  I'm  going  right  over 
that  mountain.  But  I  ain't  going  to  take  epilecs 
along.  They  ain't  never  cured,  and  when  they 
get  scared  or  excited  they  throw  fits  to  beat  the 
band.  But  I'll  take  little  Albert.  Somehow 
I  can't  get  along  without  him.  And  anyway, 
I  ain't  going  to  run  away.  The  drooling  ward's 
a  better  snap  than  gold  mines,  and  I  hear  there's 


TOLD  IN  THE  DROOLING  WARD     107 

a  new  nurse  coming.  Besides,  little  Albert's 
bigger  than  I  am  now,  and  I  could  never  carry 
him  over  a  mountain.  And  he's  growing  bigger 
every  day.  It's  astonishing. 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY 

HE  lay  on  his  back.  So  heavy  was  his  sleep 
that  the  stamp  of  hoofs  and  cries  of  the 
drivers  from  the  bridge  that  crossed  the  creek 
did  not  rouse  him.  Wagon  after  wagon, 
loaded  high  with  grapes,  passed  the  bridge  on 
the  way  up  the  valley  to  the  winery,  and  the 
coming  of  each  wagon  was  like  an  explosion  of 
sound  and  commotion  in  the  lazy  quiet  of  the 
afternoon. 

But  the  man  was  undisturbed.  His  head  had 
slipped  from  the  folded  newspaper,  and  the 
straggling  unkempt  hair  was  matted  with  the 
foxtails  and  burrs  of  the  dry  grass  on  which  it 
lay.  He  was  not  a  pretty  sight.  His  mouth 
was  open,  disclosing  a  gap  in  the  upper  row 
where  several  teeth  at  some  time  had  been 
knocked  out.  He  breathed  stertorously,  at 
times  grunting  and  moaning  with  the  pain  of  his 
sleep.  Also,  he  was  very  restless,  tossing  his 

108 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     109 

arms  about,  making  jerky,  half-convulsive  move 
ments,  and  at  times  rolling  his  head  from  side 
to  side  in  the  burrs.  This  restlessness  seemed 
occasioned  partly  by  some  internal  discomfort, 
and  partly  by  the  sun  that  streamed  down  on 
his  face  and  by  the  flies  that  buzzed  and  lighted 
and  crawled  upon  the  nose  and  cheeks  and  eye 
lids.  There  was  no  other  place  for  them  to 
crawl,  for  the  rest  of  the  face  was  covered  with 
matted  beard,  slightly  grizzled,  but  greatly  dirt- 
stained  and  weather-discoloured. 

The  cheek-bones  were  blotched  with  the  blood 
congested  by  the  debauch  that  was  evidently  be 
ing  slept  off.  This,  too,  accounted  for  the  per 
sistence  with  which  the  flies  clustered  around  the 
mouth,  lured  by  the  alcohol-laden  exhalations. 
He  was  a  powerfully  built  man,  thick-necked, 
broad-shouldered,  with  sinewy  wrists  and  toil- 
distorted  hands.  Yet  the  distortion  was  not 
due  to  recent  toil,  nor  were  the  callouses  other 
than  ancient  that  showed  under  the  dirt  of  the 
one  palm  upturned.  From  time  to  time  this 
hand  clenched  tightly  and  spasmodically  into  a 
fist,  large,  heavy-boned  and  wicked-looking. 


no    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

The  man  lay  in  the  dry  grass  of  a  tiny  glade 
that  ran  down  to  the  tree-fringed  bank  of  the 
stream.  On  either  side  of  the  glade  was  a 
fence,  of  the  old  stake-and-rider  type,  though 
little  of  it  was  to  be  seen,  so  thickly  was  it  over 
grown  by  wild  blackberry  bushes,  scrubby  oaks 
and  young  madrono  trees.  In  the  rear,  a  gate 
through  a  low  paling  fence  led  to  a  snug,  squat 
bungalow,  built  in  the  California  Spanish  style 
and  seeming  to  have  been  compounded  directly 
from  the  landscape  of  which  it  was  so  justly  a 
part.  Neat  and  trim  and  modestly  sweet  was 
the  bungalow,  redolent  of  comfort  and  repose, 
telling  with  quiet  certitude  of  some  one  that 
knew,  and  that  had  sought  and  found. 

Through  the  gate  and  into  the  glade  came  as 
dainty  a  little  maiden  as  ever  stepped  out  of  an 
illustration  made  especially  to  show  how  dainty 
little  maidens  may  be.  Eight  years  she  might 
have  been,  and,  possibly,  a  trifle  more,  or  less. 
Her  little  waist  and  little  black-stockinged  calves 
showed  how  delicately  fragile  she  was;  but  the 
fragility  was  of  mould  only.  There  was  no  hint 
of  anaemia  in  the  clear,  healthy  complexion  nor 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     in 

in  the  quick,  tripping  step.  She  was  a  little, 
delicious  blond,  with  hair  spun  of  gossamer  gold 
and  wide  blue  eyes  that  were  but  slightly  veiled 
by  the  long  lashes.  Her  expression  was  of 
sweetness  and  happiness;  it  belonged  by  right  to 
any  face  that  sheltered  in  the  bungalow. 

She  carried  a  child's  parasol,  which  she  was 
careful  not  to  tear  against  the  scrubby  branches 
and  bramble  bushes  as  she  sought  for  wild  pop 
pies  along  the  edge  of  the  fence.  They  were 
late  poppies,  a  third  generation,  which  had  been 
unable  to  resist  the  call  of  the  warm  October 
sun. 

Having  gathered  along  one  fence,  she  turned 
to  cross  to  the  opposite  fence.  Midway  in  the 
glade  she  came  upon  the  tramp.  Her  startle 
was  merely  a  startle.  There  was  no  fear  in 
it.  She  stood  and  looked  long  and  curiously  at 
the  forbidding  spectacle,  and  was  about  to  turn 
back  when  the  sleeper  moved  restlessly  and 
rolled  his  hand  among  the  burrs.  She  noted 
the  sun  on  his  face,  and  the  buzzing  flies;  her 
face  grew  solicitous,  and  for  a  moment  she  de 
bated  with  herself.  Then  she  tiptoed  to  his 


ii2     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

side,  interposed  the  parasol  between  him  and 
the  sun,  and  brushed  away  the  flies.  After  a 
time,  for  greater  ease,  she  sat  down  beside 
him. 

An  hour  passed,  during  which  she  occasion 
ally  shifted  the  parasol  from  one  tired  hand 
to  the  other.  At  first  the  sleeper  had  been  rest 
less,  but,  shielded  from  the  flies  and  the  sun,  his 
breathing  became  gentler  and  his  movements 
ceased.  Several  times,  however,  he  really 
frightened  her.  The  first  was  the  worst,  com 
ing  abruptly  and  without  warning.  u  Christ ! 
How  deep !  How  deep !  "  the  man  murmured 
from  some  profound  of  dream.  The  parasol 
was  agitated;  but  the  little  girl  controlled  her 
self  and  continued  her  self-appointed  ministra 
tions. 

Another  time  it  was  a  gritting  of  teeth,  as  of 
some  intolerable  agony.  So  terribly  did  the 
teeth  crunch  and  grind  together  that  it  seemed 
they  must  crash  into  fragments.  A  little  later 
he  suddenly  stiffened  out.  The  hands  clenched 
and  the  face  set  with  the  savage  resolution  of 
the  dre-am.  The  eyelids  trembled  from  the 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     113 

shock  of  the  fantasy,  seemed  about  to  open,  but 
did  not.  Instead,  the  lips  muttered: 

"  No;  by  God,  no.  And  once  more  no.  1 
won't  peach."  The  lips  paused,  then  went  on. 
"  You  might  as  well  tie  me  up,  warden,  and  cut 
me  to  pieces.  That's  all  you  can  get  outa  me  — 
blood.  That's  all  any  of  you-uns  has  ever  got 
outa  me  in  this  hole." 

After  this  outburst  the  man  slept  gently  on, 
while  the  little  girl  still  held  the  parasol  aloft 
and  looked  down  with  a  great  wonder  at  the 
frowsy,  unkempt  creature,  trying  to  reconcile  it 
with  the  little  part  of  life  that  she  knew.  To 
her  ears  came  the  cries  of  men,  the  stamp  of 
hoofs  on  the  bridge,  and  the  creak  and  groan 
of  wagons  heavy-laden.  It  was  a  breathless 
California  Indian  summer  day.  Light  fleeces 
of  cloud  drifted  in  the  azure  sky,  but  to  the  west 
heavy  cloud  banks  threatened  with  rain.  A  bee 
droned  lazily  by.  From  farther  thickets  came 
the  calls  of  quail,  and  from  the  fields  the  songs 
of  meadow  larks.  And  oblivious  to  it  all  slept 
Ross  Shanklin  —  Ross  Shanklin,  the  tramp  and 
outcast,  ex-convict  4379,  the  bitter  and  unbreak- 


n4    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

able  one  who  had  defied  all  keepers  and  sur 
vived  all  brutalities. 

Texas-born,  of  the  old  pioneer  stock  that  was 
always  tough  and  stubborn,  he  had  been  unfor 
tunate.  At  seventeen  years  of  age  he  had  been 
apprehended  for  horse-stealing.  Also,  he  had 
been  convicted  of  stealing  seven  horses  which 
he  had  not  stolen,  and  he  had  been  sentenced  to 
fourteen  years'  imprisonment.  This  was  severe 
under  any  circumstances,  but  with  him  it  had 
been  especially  severe,  because  there  had  been 
no  prior  convictions  against  him.  The  senti 
ment  of  the  people  who  believed  him  guilty  had 
been  that  two  years  was  adequate  punishment 
for  the  youth,  but  the  county  attorney,  paid  ac 
cording  to  the  convictions  he  secured,  had  made 
seven  charges  against  him  and  earned  seven 
fees.  Which  goes  to  show  that  the  county  at 
torney  valued  twelve  years  of  Ross  Shanklin's 
life  at  less  than  a  few  dollars. 

Young  Ross  Shanklin  had  toiled  in  hell;  he 
had  escaped,  more  than  once;  and  he  had  been 
caught  and  sent  back  to  toil  in  other  and  various 
hells.  He  had  been  triced  up  and  lashed  till  he 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     115 

fainted,  had  been  revived  and  lashed  again. 
He  had  been  in  the  dungeon  ninety  days  at  a 
time.  He  had  experienced  the  torment  of  the 
straight]  acket.  He  knew  what  the  humming 
bird  was.  He  had  been  farmed  out  as  a  chattel 
by  the  state  to  the  contractors.  He  had  been 
trailed  through  swamps  by  blood  hounds. 
Twice  he  had  been  shot.  For  six  years  on  end 
he  had  cut  a  cord  and  a  half  of  wood  each  day 
in  a  convict  lumber  camp.  Sick  or  well,  he  had 
cut  that  cord  and  a  half  or  paid  for  it  under  a 
whip-lash  knotted  and  pickled. 

And  Ross  Shanklin  had  not  sweetened  under 
the  treatment.  He  had  sneered,  and  cursed, 
and  defied.  He  had  seen  convicts,  after  the 
guards  had  manhandled  them,  crippled  in  body 
for  life,  or  left  to  maunder  in  mind  to  the  end  of 
their  days.  He  had  seen  convicts,  even  his 
own  cell-mate,  goaded  to  murder  by  their 
keepers,  'go  to  the  gallows  cursing  God.  He 
had  been  in  a  break  in  which  eleven  of  his  kind 
were  shot  down.  He  had  been  throilgh  a  mu 
tiny,  where,  in  the  prison  yard,  with  gatling  guns 
trained  upon  them,  three  hundred  convicts  had 


n6    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASM AN 

been  disciplined  with  pick-handles  wielded  by 
brawny  guards. 

He  had  known  every  infamy  of  human 
cruelty,  and  through  it  all  he  had  never  been 
broken.  He  had  resented  and  fought  to  the 
last,  until,  embittered  and  bestial,  the  day  came 
when  he  was  discharged.  Five  dollars  were 
given  him  in  payment  for  the  years  of  his  labour 
and  the  flower  of  his  manhood.  And  he  had 
worked  little  in  the  years  that  followed.  Work 
he  hated  and  despised.  He  tramped,  begged 
and  stole,  lied  or  threatened  as  the  case  might 
warrant,  and  drank  to  besottedness  whenever 
he  got  the  chance. 

The  little  girl  was  looking  at  him  when  he 
awoke.  Like  a  wild  animal,  all  of  him  was 
awake  the  instant  he  opened  his  eyes.  The 
first  he  saw  was  the  parasol,  strangely  obtruded 
between  him  and  the  sky.  He  did  not  start  nor 
move,  though  his  whole  body  seemed  slightly  to 
tense.  His  eyes  followed  down  the  parasol 
handle  to  the  tight-clutched  little  fingers,  and 
along  the  arm  to  the  child's  face.  Straight  and 
unblinking,  he  looked  into  her  eyes,  and  she,  re- 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     117 

turning  the  look,  was  chilled  and  frightened  by 
his  glittering  eyes,  cold  and  harsh,  withal  blood 
shot,  and  with  no  hint  in  them  of  the  warm 
humanness  she  had  been  accustomed  to  see  and 
feel  in  human  eyes.  They  were  the  true  prison 
eyes  —  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  had  learned  to 
talk  little,  who  had  forgotten  almost  how  to 
talk. 

"  Hello,"  he  said  finally,  making  no  effort  to 
change  his  position.  "  What  game  are  you  up 
to?" 

His  voice  was  gruff  and  husky,  and  at  first  it 
had  been  harsh;  but  it  had  softened  queerly  in  a 
feeble  attempt  at  forgotten  kindliness. 

"How  do  you  do?"  she  said.  "I'm  not 
playing.  The  sun  was  on  your  face,  and 
mamma  says  one  oughtn't  to  sleep  in  the  sun." 

The  sweet  clearness  of  her  child's  voice  was 
pleasant  to  him,  and  he  wondered  why  he  had 
never  noticed  it  in  children's  voices  before.  He 
sat  up  slowly  and  stared  at  her.  He  felt  that 
he  ought  to  say  something,  but  speech  with  him 
was  a  reluctant  thing. 

"  I  hope  you  slept  well,"  she  said  gravely. 


n8     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

11 1  sure  did,"  he  answered,  never  taking  his 
eyes  from  her,  amazed  at  the  fairness  and  deli 
cacy  of  her.  "  How  long  was  you  holdin'  that 
contraption  up  over  me?  " 

"  O-oh,"  she  debated  with  herself,  "  a  long, 
long  time.  I  thought  you  would  never  wake 
up." 

"  And  I  thought  you  was  a  fairy  when  I  first 
seen  you." 

He  felt  elated  at  his  contribution  to  the  con 
versation. 

"  No,  not  a  fairy,"  she  smiled. 

He  thrilled  in  a  strange,  numb  way  at  the 
immaculate  whiteness  of  her  small  even  teeth. 

"  I  was  just  the  good  Samaritan,"  she  added. 

"  I  reckon  I  never  heard  of  that  party." 

He  was  cudgelling  his  brains  to  keep  the  con 
versation  going.  Never  having  been  at  close 
quarters  with  a  child  since  he  was  man-grown, 
he  found  it  difficult. 

"  What  a  funny  man  not  to  know  about  the 
good  Samaritan.  Don't  you  remember?  A 
certain  man  went  down  to  Jericho  — " 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     119 

"  I  reckon  I've  been  there,"  he  interrupted. 

"  I  knew  you  were  a  traveller!  "  she  cried, 
clapping  her  hands.  "  Maybe  you  saw  the 
exact  spot." 

"What  spot?" 

"  Why,  where  he  fell  among  thieves  and  was 
left  half  dead.  And  then  the  good  Samaritan 
went  to  him,  and  bound  up  his  wounds,  and 
poured  in  oil  and  wine  —  was  that  olive  oil,  do 
you  think?  " 

He  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"  I  reckon  you  got  me  there.  Olive  oil  is 
something  the  dagoes  cooks  with.  I  never 
heard  of  it  for  busted  heads." 

She  considered  his  statement  for  a  moment. 

"  Well,"  she  announced,  "  we  use  olive  oil  in 
our  cooking,  so  we  must  be  dagoes.  I  never 
knew  what  they  were  before.  I  thought  it  was 
slang." 

"  And  the  Samaritan  dumped  oil  on  his 
head,"  the  tramp  muttered  reminiscently. 
"  Seems  to  me  I  recollect  a  sky  pilot  sayin'  some 
thing  about  that  old  gent.  D'ye  know,  I've 


120     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

been  looking  for  him  off'n'  on  all  my  life,  and 
never  scared  up  hide  or  hair  of  him.  They 
ain't  no  more  Samaritans." 

;<  Wasn't  I  one?  "  she  asked  quickly. 

He  looked  at  her  steadily,  with  a  great  curi 
osity  and  wonder.  Her  ear,  by  a  movement 
exposed  to  the  sun,  was  transparent.  It  seemed 
he  could  almost  see  through  it.  He  was 
amazed  at  the  delicacy  of  her  colouring,  at  the 
blue  of  her  eyes,  at  the  dazzle  of  the  sun- 
touched  golden  hair.  And  he  was  astounded  by 
her  fragility.  It  came  to  him  that  she  was 
easily  broken.  His  eye  went  quickly  from  his 
huge,  gnarled  paw  to  her  tiny  hand  in  which 
it  seemed  to  him  he  could  almost  see  the  blood 
circulate.  He  knew  the  power  in  his  muscles, 
and  he  knew  the  tricks  and  turns  by  which  men 
use  their  bodies  to  ill-treat  men.  In  fact,  he 
knew  little  else,  and  his  mind  for  the  time  ran 
in  its  customary  channel.  It  was  his  way  of 
measuring  the  beautiful  strangeness  of  her. 
He  calculated  a  grip,  and  not  a  strong  one,  that 
could  grind  her  little  fingers  to  pulp.  He 
thought  of  fist-blows  he  had  given  to  men's 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     121 

heads,  and  received  on  his  own  head,  and  felt 
that  the  least  of  them  could  shatter  hers  like  an 
eggshell.  He  scanned  her  little  shoulders  and 
slim  waist,  and  knew  in  all  certitude  that  with 
his  two  hands  he  could  rend  her  to  pieces. 

"  Wasn't  I  one?  "  she  insisted  again. 

He  came  back  to  himself  with  a  shock  — 
or  away  from  himself,  as  the  case  happened. 
He  was  loth  that  the  conversation  should 
cease. 

"  What?  "  he  answered.  "  Oh,  yes;  you  bet 
you  was  a  Samaritan,  even  if  you  didn't  have 
no^  olive  oil."  He  remembered  what  his  mind 
had  been  dwelling  on,  and  asked,  "  But  ain't  you 
afraid?" 

She  looked  at  him  uncomprehendingly. 

"  Of  ...  of  me  ?  "  he  added  lamely. 

She  laughed  merrily. 

"  Mamma  says  never  to  be  afraid  of  any 
thing.  She  says  that  if  you're  good,  and  you 
think  good  of  other  people,  they'll  be  good, 
too." 

"  And  you  was  thinkin'  good  of  me  when  you 
kept  the  sun  off,"  he  marvelled. 


122    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  But  it's  hard  to  think  good  of  bees  and 
nasty  crawly  things,"  she  confessed. 

"  But  there's  men  that  is  nasty  and  crawly 
things,"  he  argued. 

"  Mamma  says  no.  She  says  there's  good  in 
every  one." 

"  I  bet  you  she  locks  the  house  up  tight  at 
night  just  the  same,"  he  proclaimed  trium 
phantly. 

"  But  she  doesn't.  Mamma  isn't  afraid  of 
anything.  That's  why  she  lets  me  play  out  here 
alone  when  I  want.  Why,  we  had  a  robber 
once.  Mamma  got  right  up  and  found  him. 
And  what  do  you  think!  He  was  only  a  poor 
hungry  man.  And  she  got  him  plenty  to  eat 
from  the  pantry,  and  afterward  she  got  him 
work  to  do." 

Ross  Shanklin  was  stunned.  The  vista 
shown  him  of  human  nature  was  unthinkable. 
It  had  been  his  lot  to  live  in  a  world  of  suspicion 
and  hatred,  of  evil-believing  and  evil-doing.  It 
had  been  his  experience,  slouching  along  village 
streets  at  nightfall,  to  see  little  children,  scream 
ing  with  fear,  run  from  him  to  their  mothers. 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     123 

He  had  even  seen  grown  women  shrink  aside 
from  him  as  he  passed  along  the  sidewalk. 

He  was  aroused  by  the  girl  clapping  her 
hands  as  she  cried  out. 

"  I  know  what  you  are !  You're  an  open  air 
crank.  That's  why  you  were  sleeping  here  in 
the  grass." 

He  felt  a  grim  desire  to  laugh,  but  repressed 
it. 

"  And  that's  what  tramps  are  —  open  air 
cranks,"  she  continued.  "  I  often  wondered. 
Mamma  believes  in  the  open  air.  I  sleep  on  the 
porch  at  night.  So  does  she.  This  is  our  land. 
You  must  have  climbed  the  fence.  Mamma  lets 
me  when  I  put  on  my  climbers  —  they're 
bloomers,  you  know.  But  you  ought  to  be  told 
something.  A  person  doesn't  know  when  they 
snore  because  they're  asleep.  But  you  do  worse 
than  that.  You  grit  your  teeth.  That's  bad. 
Whenever  you  are  going  to  sleep  you  must  think 
to  yourself,  '  I  won't  grit  my  teeth,  I  won't  grit 
my  teeth,'  over  and  over,  just  like  that,  and  by 
and  by  you'll  get  out  of  the  habit. 

"  All  bad  things  are  habits.     And  so  are  all 


i24    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

good  things.  And  it  depends  on  us  what  kind 
our  habits  are  going  to  be.  I  used  to  pucker  my 
eyebrows  —  wrinkle  them  all  up,  but  mamma 
said  I  must  overcome  that  habit.  She  said  that 
when  my  eyebrows  were  wrinkled  it  was  an  ad 
vertisement  that  my  brain  was  wrinkled  inside, 
and  that  it  wasn't  good  to  have  wrinkles  in  the 
brain.  And  then  she  smoothed  my  eyebrows 
with  her  hand  and  said  I  must  always  think 
smooth  —  smooth  inside,  and  smooth  outside. 
And  do  you  know,  it  was  easy.  I  haven't 
wrinkled  my  brows  for  ever  so  long.  I've 
heard  about  filling  teeth  by  thinking.  But  I 
don't  believe  that.  Neither  does  mamma." 

She  paused,  rather  out  of  breath.  Nor  did 
he  speak.  Her  flow  of  talk  had  been  too  much 
for  him.  Also,  sleeping  drunkenly,  with  open 
mouth,  had  made  him  very  thirsty.  But,  rather 
than  lose  one  precious  moment,  he  endured  the 
torment  of  his  scorching  throat  and  mouth. 
He  licked  his  dry  lips  and  struggled  for 
speech. 

"  What  is  your  name?  "  he  managed  at  last. 

"  Joan." 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     125 

She  looked  her  own  question  at  him,  and  it 
was  not  necessary  to  voice  it. 

"  Mine  is  Ross  Shanklin,"  he  volunteered, 
for  the  first  time  in  forgotten  years  giving  his 
real  name. 

"  I  suppose  you've  travelled  a  lot." 

"  I  sure  have,  but  not  as  much  as  I  might 
have  wanted  to." 

"  Papa  always  wanted  to  travel,  but  he  was 
too  busy  at  the  office.  He  never  could  get  much 
time.  He  went  to  Europe  once  with  mamma. 
That  was  before  I  was  born.  It  takes  money 
to  travel." 

Ross  Shanklin  did  not  know  whether  to  agree 
with  this  statement  or  not. 

"  But  it  doesn't  cost  tramps  much  for  ex 
penses,"  she  took  the  thought  away  from  him. 
"  Is  that  why  you  tramp?  " 

He  nodded  and  licked  his  lips. 

"  Mamma  says  it's  too  bad  that  men  must 
tramp  to  look  for  work.  But  there's  lots  of 
work  now  in  the  country.  All  the  farmers  in 
the  valley  are  trying  to  get  men.  Have  you 
been  working?  " 


126    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

He  shook  his  head,  angry  with  himself  that 
he  should  feel  shame  at  the  confession  when  his 
savage  reasoning  told  him  he  was  right  in 
despising  work.  But  this  was  followed  by 
another  thought.  This  beautiful  little  creature 
was  some  man's  child.  She  was  one  of  the  re 
wards  of  work. 

"  I  wish  I  had  a  little  girl  like  you,"  he 
blurted  out,  stirred  by  a  sudden  consciousness  of 
passion  for  paternity.  u  I'd  work  my  hands 
off.  I  ...  I'd  do  anything." 

She  considered  his  case  with  fitting  gravity. 

"  Then  you  aren't  married?  " 

"  Nobody  would  have  me." 

"  Yes  they  would,  if  .  .  ." 

She  did  not  turn  up  her  nose,  but  she  favoured 
his  dirt  and  rags  with  a  look  of  disapprobation 
he  could  not  mistake. 

"  Go  on,"  he  half-shouted.  "  Shoot  it  into 
me.  If  I  was  washed  —  if  I  wore  good  clothes 
—  if  I  was  respectable  —  if  I  had  a  job  and 
worked  regular  —  if  I  wasn't  what  I  am." 

To  each  statement  she  nodded. 

"  Well,   I   ain't  that  kind,"   he   rushed  on. 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     127 

"  I'm  no  good.  I'm  a  tramp.  I  don't  want  to 
work,  that's  what.  And  I  like  dirt." 

Her  face  was  eloquent  with  reproach  as  she 
said,  "  Then  you  were  only  making  believe  when 
you  wished  you  had  a  little  girl  like  me?  " 

This  left  him  speechless,  for  he  knew,  in  all 
the  deeps  of  his  new-found  passion,  that  that 
was  just  what  he  did  want. 

With  ready  tact,  noting  his  discomfort,  she 
sought  to  change  the  subject. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  God?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  ain't  never  met  him.  What  do  you  think 
about  him  ?  " 

His  reply  was  evidently  angry,  and  she  was 
frank  in  her  disapproval. 

"  You  are  very  strange,"  she  said.  "  You 
get  angry  so  easily.  I  never  saw  anybody  be 
fore  that  got  angry  about  God,  or  work,  or  be 
ing  clean." 

"  He  never  done  anything  for  me,"  he  mut 
tered  resentfully.  He  cast  back  in  quick  review 
of  the  long  years  of  toil  in  the  convict  camps 
and  mines.  "  And  work  never  done  anything 
for  me  neither." 


128     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

An  embarrassing  silence  fell. 

He  looked  at  her,  numb  and  hungry  with  the 
stir  of  the  father-love,  sorry  for  his  ill  temper, 
puzzling  his  brain  for  something  to  say.  She 
was  looking  off  and  away  at  the  clouds,  and  he 
devoured  her  with  his  eyes.  He  reached  out 
stealthily  and  rested  one  grimy  hand  on  the  very 
edge  of  her  little  dress.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
she  was  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  world. 
The  quail  still  called  from  the  coverts,  and  the 
harvest  sounds  seemed  abruptly  to  become  very 
loud.  A  great  loneliness  oppressed  him. 

"  I'm  .  .  .  I'm  no  good,"  he  murmured 
huskily  and  repentantly. 

But,  beyond  a  glance  from  her  blue  eyes,  she 
took  no  notice.  The  silence  was  more  embar 
rassing  than  ever.  He  felt  that  he  could  give 
the  world  just  to  touch  with  his  lips  that  hem  of 
her  dress  where  his  hand  rested.  But  he  was 
afraid  of  frightening  her.  He  fought  to  find 
something  to  say,  licking  his  parched  lips  and 
vainly  attempting  to  articulate  something,  any 
thing. 

"  This   ain't  Sonoma   Valley,"   he   declared 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     129 

finally.  "  This  is  fairy  land,  and  you're  a  fairy. 
Mebbe  I'm  asleep  and  dreaming.  I  don't 
know.  You  and  me  don't  know  how  to  talk 
together,  because,  you  see,  you're  a  fairy  and 
don't  know  nothing  but  good  things,  and  I'm  a 
man  from  the  bad,  wicked  world." 

Having  achieved  this  much,  he  was  left  gasp 
ing  for  ideas  like  a  stranded  fish. 

"  And  you're  going  to  tell  me  about  the  bad, 
wicked  world,"  she  cried,  clapping  her  hands. 
"  I'm  just  dying  to  know." 

He  looked  at  her,  startled,  remembering  the 
wreckage  of  womanhood  he  had  encountered  on 
the  sunken  ways  of  life.  She  was  no  fairy. 
She  was  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  possibilities  of 
wreckage  were  in  her  as  they  had  been  in  him 
even  when  he  lay  at  his  mother's  breast.  And 
there  was  in  her  eagerness  to  know. 

"  Nope,"  he  said  lightly,  "  this  man  from 
the  bad,  wicked  world  ain't  going  to  tell  you 
nothing  of  the  kind.  He's  going  to  tell  you  of 
the  good  things  in  that  world.  He's  going  to 
tell  you  how  he  loved  hosses  when  he  was  a 
shaver,  and  about  the  first  hoss  he  straddled, 


130    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

and  the  first  boss  he  owned.  Hosses  ain't  like 
men.  They're  better.  They're  clean  —  clean 
all  the  way  through  and  back  again.  And,  little 
fairy,  I  want  to  tell  you  one  thing  —  there  sure 
ain't  nothing  in  the  world  like  when  you're  set- 
tin'  a  tired  boss  at  the  end  of  a  long  day,  and 
when  you  just  speak,  and  that  tired  animal  lifts 
under  you  willing  and  hustles  along.  Hosses! 
They're  my  long  suit.  I  sure  dote  on  bosses. 
Yep.  I  used  to  be  a  cowboy  once." 

She  clapped  her  hands  in  the  way  that  tore  so 
delightfully  to  his  heart,  and  her  eyes  were 
dancing,  as  she  exclaimed: 

"  A  Texas  cowboy!  I  always  wanted  to  see 
one !  I  heard  papa  say  once  that  cowboys  are 
bow-legged.  Are  you?  " 

"  I  sure  was  a  Texas  cowboy,"  he  answered. 
"  But  it  was  a  long  time  ago.  And  I'm  sure 
bow-legged.  You  see,  you  can't  ride  much 
when  you're  young  and  soft  without  getting  the 
legs  bent  some.  Why,  I  was  only  a  three-year- 
old  when  I  begun.  He  was  a  three-year-old, 
too,  fresh-broken.  I  led  him  up  alongside  the 
fence,  dumb  to  the  top  rail,  and  dropped  on. 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     131 

He  was  a  pinto,  and  a  real  devil  at  bucking,  but 
I  could  do  anything  with  him.  I  reckon  he 
knowed  I  was  only  a  little  shaver.  Some  bosses 
knows  lots  more  'n'  you  think." 

For  half  an  hour  Ross  Shanklin  rambled  on 
with  his  horse  reminiscences,  never  unconscious 
for  a  moment  of  the  supreme  joy  that  was  his 
through  the  touch  of  his  hand  on- the  hem  of 
her  dress.  The  sun  dropped  slowly  into  the 
cloud  bank,  the  quail  called  more  insistently,  and 
empty  wagon  after  empty  wagon  rumbled  back 
across  the  bridge.  Then  came  a  woman's 
voice. 

"Joan!  Joan!"  it  called.  "Where  are 
you,  dear?  " 

The  little  girl  answered,  and  Ross  Shanklin 
saw  a  woman,  clad  in  a  soft,  clinging  gown, 
come  through  the  gate  from  the  bungalow. 
She  was  a  slender,  graceful  woman,  and  to 
his  charmed  eyes  she  seemed  rather  to  float 
along  than  walk  like  ordinary  flesh  and 
blood. 

'  What  have  you  been  doing  all  afternoon?  " 
the  woman  asked,  as  she  came  up. 


132     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

'  Talking,  mamma,"  the  little  girl  replied. 
"  IVe  had  a  very  interesting  time." 

Ross  Shanklin  scrambled  to  his  feet  and  stood 
watchfully  and  awkwardly.  The  little  girl  took 
the  mother's  hand,  and  she,  in  turn,  looked  at 
him  frankly  and  pleasantly,  with  a  recognition 
of  his  humanness  that  was  a  new  thing  to  him. 
In  his  mind  ran  the  thought:  the  woman  who 
ain't  afraid.  Not  a  hint  was  there  of  the 
timidity  he  was  accustomed  to  seeing  in  women's 
eyes.  And  he  was  quite  aware,  and  never  more 
so,  of  his  bleary-eyed,  forbidding  appearance. 

"  How  do  you  do?  "  she  greeted  him  sweetly 
and  naturally. 

"  How  do  you  do,  ma'am,"  he  responded,  un 
pleasantly  conscious  of  the  huskiness  and  raw 
ness  of  his  voice. 

"  And  did  you  have  an  interesting  time, 
too?  "  she  smiled. 

"  Yes,  ma'am.  I  sure  did.  I  was  just  tell 
ing  your  little  girl  about  hosses." 

"  He  was  a  cowboy,  once,  mamma,"  she 
cried. 

The  mother  smiled  her  acknowledgment  to 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     133 

him,  and  looked  fondly  down  at  the  little  girl. 
The  thought  that  came  into  Ross  Shanklin's 
mind  was  the  awfulness  of  the  crime  if  any  one 
should  harm  either  of  the  wonderful  pair. 
This  was  followed  by  the  wish  that  some  terrible 
danger  should  threaten,  so  that  he  could  fight, 
as  he  well  knew  how,  with  all  his  strength  and 
life,  to  defend  them. 

"  You'll  have  to  come  along,  dear,"  the 
mother  said.  "  It's  growing  late."  She  looked 
at  Ross  Shanklin  hesitantly.  "  Would  you  care 
to  have  something  to  eat?  " 

"  No,  ma'am,  thanking  you  kindly  just  the 
same.  I  ...  I  ain't  hungry." 

'*  Then  say  good-bye,  Joan,"  she  counselled. 

"  Good-bye."  The  little  girl  held  out  her 
hand,  and  her  eyes  lighted  roguishly.  "  Good 
bye,  Mr.  Man  from  the  bad,  wicked  world." 

To  him,  the  touch  of  her  hand  as  he  pressed 
it  in  his  was  the  capstone  of  the  whole  adven 
ture. 

"  Good-bye,  little  fairy,"  he  mumbled.  "  I 
reckon  I  got  to  be  pullin'  along." 

But  he  did  not  pull  along.     He  stood  staring 


134    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

after  his  vision  until  it  vanished  through  the 
gate.  The  day  seemed  suddenly  empty.  He 
looked  about  him  irresolutely,  then  climbed  the 
fence,  crossed  the  bridge,  and  slouched  along 
the  road.  He  was  in  a  dream.  He  did  not 
note  his  feet  nor  the  way  they  led  him.  At 
times  he  stumbled  in  the  dust-filled  ruts. 

A  mile  farther  on,  he  aroused  at  the  cross 
roads.  Before  him  stood  the  saloon.  He 
came  to  a  stop  and  stared  at  it,  licking  his 
lips.  He  sank  his  hand  into  his  pants  pocket 
and  fumbled  a  solitary  dime.  "  God !  "  he  mut 
tered.  "God!"  Then,  with  dragging,  re 
luctant  feet,  went  on  along  the  road. 

He  came  to  a  big  farm.  He  knew  it  must 
be  big,  because  of  the  bigness  of  the  house  and 
the  size  and  number  of  the  barns  and  outbuild 
ings.  On  the  porch,  in  shirt  sleeves,  smoking  a 
cigar,  keen-eyed  and  middle-aged,  was  the 
farmer. 

"  What's  the  chance  for  a  job?  "  Ross  Shank- 
lin  asked. 

The  keen  eyes  scarcely  glanced  at  him. 

"  A  dollar  a  day  and  grub,"  was  the  answer. 


THE  HOBO  AND  THE  FAIRY     135 

Ross  Shanklin  swallowed  and  braced  himself. 

"  I'll  pick  grapes  all  right,  or  anything.  But 
what's  the  chance  for  a  steady  job?  You've 
got  a  big  ranch  here.  I  know  hosses.  I  was 
born  on  one.  I  can  drive  team,  ride,  plough, 
break,  do  anything  that  anybody  ever  done  with 
hosses." 

The  other  looked  him  over  with  an  apprais 
ing,  incredulous  eye. 

1  You  don't  look  it,"  was  the  judgment. 

"  I  know  I  don't.  Give  me  a  chance.  That's 
all.  I'll  prove  it." 

The  farmer  considered,  casting  an  anxious 
glance  at  the  cloud  bank  into  which  the  sun  had 
sunk. 

"  I'm  short  a  teamster,  and  I'll  give  you  the 
chance  to  make  good.  Go  and  get  supper  with 
the  hands." 

Ross  Shanklin's  voice  was  very  husky,  and  he 
spoke  with  an  effort. 

"  All  right.  I'll  make  good.  Where  can  I 
get  a  drink  of  water  and  wash  up  ?  " 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER 


JOSIAH  CHILDS  was  ordinarily  an  ordi 
nary-appearing,  prosperous  business  man. 
He  wore  a  sixty-dollar,  business-man's  suit,  his 
shoes  were  comfortable  and  seemly  and  made 
from  the  current  last,  his  tie,  collars  and  cuffs 
were  just  what  all  prosperous  business  men 
wore,  and  an  up-to-date,  business-man's  derby 
was  his  wildest  adventure  in  head-gear.  Oak 
land,  California,  is  no  sleepy  country  town,  and 
Josiah  Childs,  as  the  leading  grocer  of  a  rushing 
Western  metropolis  of  three  hundred  thousand, 
appropriately  lived,  acted,  and  dressed  the  part. 
But  on  this  morning,  before  the  rush  of  cus 
tom  began,  his  appearance  at  the  store,  while  it 
did  not  cause  a  riot,  was  sufficiently  startling  to 
impair  for  half  an  hour  the  staff's  working  ef 
ficiency.  He  nodded  pleasantly  to  the  two  de- 

136 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       137 

livery  drivers  loading  their  wagons  for  the  first 
trip  of  the  morning,  and  cast  upward  the  inevi 
table,  complacent  glance  at  the  sign  that  ran 
across  the  front  of  the  building  —  CHILDS' 
CASH  STORE.  The  lettering,  not  too  large, 
was  of  dignified  black  and  gold,  suggestive  of 
noble  spices,  aristocratic  condiments,  and  every 
thing  of  the  best  (which  was  no  more  than  to  be 
expected  of  a  scale  of  prices  ten  per  cent,  higher 
than  any  other  grocery  in  town).  But  what 
Josiah  Childs  did  not  see  as  he  turned  his  back 
on  the  drivers  and  entered,  was  the  helpless  and 
mutual  fall  of  surprise  those  two  worthies  per 
petrated  on  each  other's  necks.  They  clung  to 
gether  for  support. 

"Did  you  catch  the  kicks,  Bill?"  one 
moaned. 

"  Did  you  pipe  the  head-piece?  "  Bill  moaned 
back. 

"  Now  if  he  was  goin'  to  a  masquerade 
ball  .  .  ." 

"  Or  attendin'  a  reunion  of  the  Rough  Rid 
ers  .  .  ." 

"  Or  goin'  huntin'  bear  .  .  ." 


i3 8     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  Or  swearin'  off  his  taxes  .  .  ." 

"  Instead  of  goin'  all  the  way  to  the  effete 
East  —  Monkton  says  he's  going  clear  to  Bos 
ton.  .  .  ." 

The  two  drivers  held  each  other  apart  at 
arm's  length,  and  fell  limply  together  again. 

For  Josiah  Childs'  outfit  was  all  their  actions 
connotated.  His  hat  was  a  light  fawn,  stiff- 
rimmed  John  B.  Stetson,  circled  by  a  band  of 
Mexican  stamped  leather.  Over  a  blue  flannel 
shirt,  set  off  by  a  drooping  Windsor  tie,  was  a 
rough-and-ready  coat  of  large-ribbed  corduroy. 
Pants  of  the  same  material  were  thrust  into 
high-laced  shoes  of  the  sort  worn  by  surveyors, 
explorers,  and  linemen. 

A  clerk  at  a  near  counter  almost  petrified  at 
sight  of  his  employer's  bizarre  rig.  Monkton, 
recently  elevated  to  the  managership,  gasped, 
swallowed,  and  maintained  his  imperturbable  at- 
tentiveness.  The  lady  bookkeeper,  glancing 
down  from  her  glass  eyrie  on  the  inside  balcony, 
took  one  look  and  buried  her  giggles  in  the  day 
book.  Josiah  Childs  saw  most  of  all  this,  but 
he  did  not  mind.  He  was  starting  on  his  vaca- 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       139 

tion,  and  his  head  and  heart  were  buzzing  with 
plans  and  anticipations  of  the  most  adventurous 
vacation  he  had  taken  in  ten  years.  Under  his 
eyelids  burned  visions  of  East  Falls,  Connecti 
cut,  and  of  all  the  home  scenes  he  had  been 
born  to  and  brought  up  in.  Oakland,  he  was 
thoroughly  aware,  was  more  modern  than  East 
Falls,  and  the  excitement  caused  by  his  garb 
was  only  to  be  expected.  Undisturbed  by  the 
sensation  he  knew  he  was  creating  among  his 
employes,  he  moved  about,  accompanied  by  his 
manager,  making  last  suggestions,  giving  final 
instructions,  and  radiating  fond,  farewell 
glances  at  all  the  loved  details  of  the  business  he 
had  built  out  of  nothing. 

He  had  a  right  to  be  proud  of  Childs'  Cash 
Store.  Twelve  years  before  he  had  landed  in 
Oakland  with  fourteen  dollars  and  forty-three 
cents.  Cents  did  not  circulate  so  far  West,  and 
after  the  fourteen  dollars  were  gone,  he  con 
tinued  to  carry  the  three  pennies  in  his  pocket 
for  a  weary  while.  Later,  when  he  had  got  a 
job  clerking  in  a  small  grocery  for  eleven  dollars 
a  week,  and  had  begun  sending  a  small  monthly 


140    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

postal  order  to  one,  Agatha  Childs,  East  Falls, 
Connecticut,  he  invested  the  three  coppers  in 
postage  stamps.  Uncle  Sam  could  not  reject  his 
own  lawful  coin  of  the  realm. 

Having  spent  all  his  life  in  cramped  New 
England,  where  sharpness  and  shrewdness  had 
been  whetted  to  razor-edge  on  the  harsh  stone 
of  meagre  circumstance,  he  had  found  himself 
abruptly  in  the  loose  and  free-and-easy  West, 
where  men  thought  in  thousand-dollar  bills  and 
newsboys  dropped  dead  at  sight  of  copper  cents. 
Josiah  Childs  bit  like  fresh  acid  into  the  new 
industrial  and  business  conditions.  He  had 
vision.  He  saw  so  many  ways  of  making 
money  all  at  once,  that  at  first  his  brain  was  in 
a  whirl. 

At  the  same  time,  being  sane  and  conserva 
tive,  he  had  resolutely  avoided  speculation. 
The  solid  and  substantial  called  to  him.  Clerk 
ing  at  eleven  dollars  a  week,  he  took  note  of  the 
lost  opportunities,  of  the  openings  for  safe  enter 
prise,  of  the  countless  leaks  in  the  business.  If, 
despite  all  this,  the  boss  could  make  a  good  liv 
ing,  what  couldn't  he,  Josiah  Childs,  do  with  his 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       141 

Connecticut  training?  It  was  like  a  bottle  of 
wine  to  a  thirsty  hermit,  this  coming  to  the  ac 
tive,  generous-spending  West  after  thirty-five 
years  in  East  Falls,  the  last  fifteen  of  which  had 
been  spent  in  humdrum  clerking  in  the  hum 
drum  East  Falls  general  store.  Josiah  Childs' 
head  buzzed  with  the  easy  possibilities  he  saw. 
But  he  did  not  lose  his  head.  No  detail  was 
overlooked.  He  spent  his  spare  hours  in  study 
ing  Oakland,  its  people,  how  they  made  their 
money,  and  why  they  spent  it  and  where.  He 
walked  the  central  streets,  watching  the  drift  of 
the  buying  crowds,  even  counting  them  and  com 
piling  the  statistics  in  various  notebooks.  He 
studied  the  general  credit  system  of  the  trade, 
and  the  particular  credit  systems  of  the  different 
districts.  He  could  tell  to  a  dot  the  average 
wage  or  salary  earned  by  the  householders  of 
any  locality,  and  he  made  it  a  point  of  thorough 
ness  to  know  every  locality  from  the  waterfront 
slums  to  the  aristocratic  Lake  Merritt  and  Pied 
mont  sections,  from  West  Oakland,  where  dwelt 
the  railroad  employes,  to  the  semi-farmers  of 
Fruitvale  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  city. 


142     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Broadway,  on  the  main  street  and  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  shopping  district,  where  no  grocer 
had  ever  been  insane  enough  to  dream  of  es 
tablishing  a  business,  was  his  ultimate  selection. 
But  that  required  money,  while  he  had  to  start 
from  the  smallest  of  beginnings.  His  first 
store  was  on  lower  Filbert,  where  lived  the  nail- 
workers.  In  half  a  year,  three  other  little  cor 
ner  groceries  went  out  of  business  while  he  was 
compelled  to  enlarge  his  premises.  He  under 
stood  the  principle  of  large  sales  at  small  profits, 
of  stable  qualities  of  goods,  and  of  a  square 
deal.  He  had  glimpsed,  also,  the  secret  of  ad 
vertising.  Each  week  he  set  forth  one  article 
that  sold  at  a  loss  to  him.  This  was  not  an 
advertised  loss,  but  an  absolute  loss.  His  one 
clerk  prophesied  impending  bankruptcy  when 
butter,  that  cost  Childs  thirty  cents,  was  sold 
for  twenty-five  cents,  when  twenty-two-cent 
coffee  was  passed  across  the  counter  at  eighteen 
cents.  The  neighbourhood  housewives  came 
for  these  bargains  and  remained  to  buy  other  ar 
ticles  that  sold  at  a  profit.  Moreover,  the 
whole  neighbourhood  came  quickly  to  know 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       143 

Josiah  Childs,  and  the  busy  crowd  of  buyers  in 
his  store  was  an  attraction  in  itself. 

But  Josiah  Childs  made  no  mistake.  He 
knew  the  ultimate  foundation  on  which  his  pros 
perity  rested.  He  studied  the  nail  works  until 
he  came  to  know  as  much  about  them  as  the 
managing  directors.  Before  the  first  whisper 
had  stirred  abroad,  he  sold  his  store,  and  with 
a  modest  sum  of  ready  cash  went  in  search  of  a 
new  location.  Six  months  later  the  nail  woiks 
closed  down,  and  closed  down  forever. 

His  next  store  was  established  on  Adeline 
Street,  where  lived  a  comfortable,  salaried  class. 
Here,  his  shelves  carried  a  higher-grade  and  a 
more  diversified  stock.  By  the  same  old 
method,  he  drew  his  crowd.  He  established  a 
delicatessen  counter.  He  dealt  directly  with 
the  farmers,  so  that  his  butter  and  eggs  were 
not  only  always  dependable  but  were  a  shade 
better  than  those  sold  by  the  finest  groceries  in 
the  city.  One  of  his  specialties  was  Boston 
baked  beans,  and  so  popular  did  it  become  that 
the  Twin  Cabin  Bakery  paid  him  better  than 
handsomely  for  the  privilege  of  taking  it  over. 


144    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

He  made  time  to  study  the  farmers,  the  very 
apples  they  grew,  and  certain  farmers  he  taught 
how  properly  to  make  cider.  As  a  side-line, 
his  New  England  apple  cider  proved  his  great 
est  success,  and  before  long,  after  he  had  in 
vaded  San  Francisco,  Berkeley,  and  Alameda, 
he  ran  it  as  an  independent  business. 

But  always  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  Broadway. 
Only  one  other  intermediate  move  did  he  make, 
which  was  to  as  near  as  he  could  get  to  the 
Ashland  Park  Tract,  where  every  purchaser  of 
land  was  legally  pledged  to  put  up  no  home 
that  should  cost  less  than  four  thousand  dollars. 
After  that  came  Broadway.  A  strange  swirl 
had  come  in  the  tide  of  the  crowd.  The  drift 
was  to  Washington  Street,  where  real  estate 
promptly  soared  while  on  Broadway  it  was  as 
if  the  bottom  had  fallen  out.  One  big  store 
after  another,  as  the  leases  expired,  moved  to 
Washington. 

The  crowd  will  come  back,  Josiah  Childs 
said,  but  he  said  it  to  himself.  He  knew  the 
crowd.  Oakland  was  growing,  and  he  knew 
why  it  was  growing.  Washington  Street  was 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER      145 

too  narrow  to  carry  the  increasing  traffic. 
Along  Broadway,  in  the  physical  nature  of 
things,  the  electric  cars,  ever  in  greater  num 
bers,  would  have  to  run.  The  realty  dealers 
said  that  the  crowd  would  never  come  back, 
while  the  leading  merchants  followed  the  crowd. 
And  then  it  was,  at  a  ridiculously  low  figure, 
that  Josiah  Childs  got  a  long  lease  on  a  modern, 
Class  A  building  on  Broadway,  with  a  buying 
option  at  a  fixed  price.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  the  end  for  Broadway,  said  the  realty  dealers, 
when  a  grocery  was  established  in  its  erstwhile 
sacred  midst.  Later,  when  the  crowd  did  come 
back,  they  said  Josiah  Childs  was  lucky.  Also, 
they  whispered  among  themselves  that  he  had 
cleared  at  least  fifty  thousand  on  the  transac 
tion. 

It  was  an  entirely  different  store  from  his 
previous  ones.  There  were  no  more  bargains. 
Everything  was  of  the  superlative  best,  and 
superlative  best  prices  were  charged.  He 
catered  to  the  most  expensive  trade  in  town. 
Only  those  who  could  carelessly  afford  to  pay 
ten  per  cent,  more  than  anywhere  else,  patron- 


146    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

ised  him,  and  so  excellent  was  his  service  that 
they  could  not  afford  to  go  elsewhere,  His 
horses  and  delivery  wagons  were  more  ex 
pensive  and  finer  than  any  one  else's  in  town. 
He  paid  his  drivers,  and  clerks,  and  bookkeep 
ers  higher  wages  than  any  other  store  could 
dream  of  paying.  As  a  result,  he  got  more 
efficient  men,  and  they  rendered  him  and  his 
patrons  a  more  satisfying  service.  In  short,  to 
deal  at  Childs'  Cash  Store  became  almost  the 
infallible  index  of  social  status. 

To  cap  everything,  came  the  great  San  Fran 
cisco  earthquake  and  fire,  which  caused  one 
hundred  thousand  people  abruptly  to  come 
across  the  Bay  and  live  in  Oakland.  Not  least 
to  profit  from  so  extraordinary  a  boom,  was 
Josiah  Childs.  And  now,  after  twelve  years' 
absence,  he  was  departing  on  a  visit  to  East 
Falls,  Connecticut.  In  the  twelve  years  he  had 
not  received  a  letter  from  Agatha,  nor  had  he 
seen  even  a  photograph  of  his  and  Agatha's 
boy. 

Agatha  and  he  had  never  got  along  together. 
Agatha  was  masterful.  Agatha  had  a  tongue. 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       147 

She  was  strong  on  old-fashioned  morality. 
She  was  unlovely  in  her  rectitude.  Josiah 
never  could  quite  make  out  how  he  had  hap 
pened  to  marry  her.  She  was  two  years  his 
senior,  and  had  long  ranked  as  an  old  maid. 
She  had  taught  school,  and  was  known  by  the 
young  generation  as  the  sternest  disciplinarian 
in  its  experience.  She  had  become  set  in  her 
ways,  and  when  she  married  it  was  merely  an 
exchange  of  a  number  of  pupils  for  one. 
Josiah  had  to  stand  the  hectoring  and  nagging 
that  thitherto  had  been  distributed  among 
many.  As  to  how  the  marriage  came  about, 
his  Uncle  Isaac  nearly  hit  it  off  one  day  when 
he  said  in  confidence :  "  Josiah,  when  Agatha 
married  you  it  was  a  case  of  marrying  a 
struggling  young  man.  I  reckon  you  was  over 
powered.  Or  maybe  you  broke  your  leg-  and 
couldn't  get  away." 

"  Uncle  Isaac,"  Josiah  answered,  "  I  didn't 
break  my  leg.  I  ran  my  dangdest,  but  she  just 
plum  run  me  down  and  out  of  breath." 

"Strong  in  the  wind,  eh?"  Uncle  Isaac 
chuckled. 


148     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  We've  ben  married  five  years  now,"  Josiah 
agreed,  "  and  I've  never  known  her  to  lose  it." 

"  And  never  will,"  Uncle  Isaac  added. 

This  conversation  had  taken  place  in  the  last 
days,  and  so  dismal  an  outlook  proved  too  much 
for  Josiah  Childs.  Meek  he  was,  under 
Agatha's  firm  tuition,  but  he  was  very  healthy, 
and  his  promise  of  life  was  too  long  for  his 
patience.  He  was  only  thirty-three,  and  he 
came  of  a  long-lived  stock.  Thirty-three  more 
years  with  Agatha  and  Agatha's  nagging  was 
too  hideous  to  contemplate.  So,  between  a 
sunset  and  a  rising,  Josiah  Childs  disappeared 
from  East  Falls.  And  from  that  day,  for 
twelve  years,  he  had  received  no  letter  from 
her.  Not  that  it  was  her  fault.  He  had  care 
fully  avoided  letting  her  have  his  address. 
His  first  postal  money  orders  were  sent  to  her 
from  Oakland,  but  in  the  years  that  followed 
he  had  arranged  his  remittances  so  that  they 
bore  the  scattered  postmarks  of  most  of  the 
states  west  of  the  Rockies. 

But  twelve  years,  and  the  confidence  born  of 
deserved  success,  had  softened  his  memories. 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       149 

After  all,  she  was  the  mother  of  his  boy,  and  it 
was  incontestable  that  she  had  always  meant 
well.  Besides,  he  was  not  working  so  hard 
now,  and  he  had  more  time  to  think  of  things 
besides  his  business.  He  wanted  to  see  the  boy, 
whom  he  had  never  seen  and  who  had  turned 
three  before  his  father  ever  learned  he  was  a 
father.  Then,  too,  homesickness  had  begun  to 
crawl  in  him.  In  a  dozen  years  he  had  not 
seen  snow,  and  he  was  always  wondering  if  New 
England  fruits  and  berries  had  not  a  finer  tang 
than  those  of  California.  Through  hazy 
vistas  he  saw  the  old  New  England  life,  and 
he  wanted  to  see  it  again  in  the  flesh  before  he 
died. 

And,  finally,  there  was  duty.  Agatha  was 
his  wife.  He  would  bring  her  back  with  him 
to  the  West.  He  felt  that  he  could  stand  it. 
He  was  a  man,  now,  in  the  world  of  men.  He 
ran  things,  instead  of  being  run,  and  Agatha 
would  quickly  find  it  out.  Nevertheless,  he 
wanted  Agatha  to  come  to  him  for  his  own  sake. 
So  it  was  that  he  had  put  on  his  frontier  rig. 
He  would  be  the  prodigal  father,  returning  as 


150    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

penniless  as  when  he  left,  and  it  would  be  up  to 
her  whether  or  not  she  killed  the  fatted  calf. 
Empty  of  hand,  and  looking  it,  he  would  come 
back  wondering  if  he  could  get  his  old  job  in 
the  general  store.  Whatever  followed  would 
be  Agatha's  affair. 

By  the  time  he  said  good-bye  to  his  staff  and 
emerged  on  the  sidewalk,  five  more  of  his  de 
livery  wagons  were  backed  up  and  loading. 
He  ran  his  eye  proudly  over  them,  took  a  last 
fond  glance  at  the  black-and-gold  letters,  and 
signalled  the  electric  car  at  the  corner. 


II 

HE  ran  up  to  East  Falls  from  New  York. 
In  the  Pullman  smoker  he  became  ac 
quainted  with  several  business  men.  The  con 
versation,  turning  on  the  West,  was  quickly  led 
by  him.  As  president  of  the  Oakland  Chamber 
of  Commerce,  he  was  an  authority.  His  words 
carried  weight,  and  he  knew  what  he  was  talk 
ing  about,  whether  it  was  Asiatic  trade,  the 
Panama  Canal,  or  the  Japanese  coolie  question. 
It  was  very  exhilarating,  this  stimulus  of  re 
spectful  attention  accorded  him  by  these  pros 
perous  Eastern  men,  and  before  he  knew  it  he 
was  at  East  Falls. 

He  was  the  only  person  who  alighted,  and  the 
station  was  deserted.  Nobody  was  there  ex 
pecting  anybody.  The  long  twilight  of  a  Jan 
uary  evening  was  beginning,  and  the  bite  of  the 
keen  air  made  him  suddenly  conscious  that  his 
clothing  was  saturated  with  tobacco  smoke. 
151 


i5 2     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

He  shuddered  involuntarily.  Agatha  did  not 
tolerate  tobacco.  He  half-moved  to  toss  the 
fresh-lighted  cigar  away,  then  it  was  borne  in 
upon  him  that  this  was  the  old  East  Falls  at 
mosphere  overpowering  him,  and  he  resolved 
to  combat  it,  thrusting  the  cigar  between  his 
teeth  and  gripping  it  with  the  firmness  of  a 
dozen  years  of  Western  resolution. 

A  few  steps  brought  him  into  the  little  main 
street.  The  chilly,  stilted  aspect  of  it  shocked 
him.  Everything  seemed  frosty  and  pinched, 
just  as  the  cutting  air  did  after  the  warm  balmi- 
ness  of  California.  Only  several  persons, 
strangers  to  his  recollection,  were  abroad,  and 
they  favoured  him  with  incurious  glances. 
They  were  wrapped  in  an  uncongenial  and 
frosty  imperviousness.  His  first  impression 
was  surprise  at  his  surprise.  Through  the  wide 
perspective  of  twelve  years  of  Western  life,  he 
had  consistently  and  steadily  discounted  the  size 
and  importance  of  East  Falls;  but  this  was 
worse  than  all  discounting.  Things  were  more 
meagre  than  he  had  dreamed.  The  general 
store  took  his  breath  away.  Countless  myriads 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       153 

of  times  he  had  contrasted  it  with  his  own 
spacious  emporium,  but  now  he  saw  that  in 
justice  he  had  overdone  it.  He  felt  certain 
that  it  could  not  accommodate  two  of  his 
delicatessen  counters,  and  he  knew  that  he  could 
lose  all  of  it  in  one  of  his  storerooms. 

He  took  the  familiar  turning  to  the  right  at 
the  head  of  the  street,  and  as  he  plodded  along 
the  slippery  walk  he  decided  that  one  of  the 
first  things  he  must  do  was  to  buy  sealskin  cap 
and  gloves.  The  thought  of  sleighing  cheered 
him  for  a  moment,  until,  now  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  village,  he  was  sanitarily  perturbed  by 
the  adjacency  of  dwelling  houses  and  barns. 
Some  were  even  connected.  Cruel  memories 
of  bitter  morning  chores  oppressed  him.  The 
thought  of  chapped  hands  and  chilblains  was 
almost  terrifying,  and  his  heart  sank  at  sight  of 
the  double  storm-windows,  which  he  knew  were 
solidly  fastened  and  unraisable,  while  the  small 
ventilating  panes,  the  size  of  ladies'  handker 
chiefs,  smote  him  with  sensations  of  suffocation. 
Agatha'll  like  California,  he  thought,  calling  to 
his  mind  visions  of  roses  in  dazzling  sunshine 


154    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

and  the  wealth  of  flowers  that  bloomed  the 
twelve  months  round. 

And  then,  quite  illogically,  the  years  were 
bridged  and  the  whole  leaden  weight  of  East 
Falls  descended  upon  him  like  a  damp  sea  fog. 
He  fought  it  from  him,  thrusting  it  off  and  aside 
by  sentimental  thoughts  on  the  u  honest  snow," 
the  "  fine  elms,"  the  "  sturdy  New  England 
spirit,"  and  the  "  great  homecoming."  But  at 
sight  of  Agatha's  house  he  wilted.  Before  he 
knew  it,  with  a  recrudescent  guilty  pang,  he  had 
tossed  the  half-smoked  cigar  away  and  slack 
ened  his  pace  until  his  feet  dragged  in  the  old 
lifeless,  East  Falls  manner.  He  tried  to  re 
member  that  he  was  the  owner  of  Childs'  Cash 
Store,  accustomed  to  command,  whose  words 
were  listened  to  with  respect  in  the  Employers' 
Association,  and  who  wielded  the  gavel  at  the 
meetings  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce.  He 
strove  to  conjure  visions  of  the  letters  in  black 
and  gold,  and  of  the  string  of  delivery  wagons 
backed  up  to  the  sidewalk.  But  Agatha's  New 
England  spirit  was  as  sharp  as  the  frost,  and  it 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       155 

travelled  to  him  through  solid  house-walls  and 
across  the  intervening  hundred  yards. 

Then  he  became  aware  that  despite  his  will 
he  had  thrown  the  cigar  away.  This  brought 
him  an  awful  vision.  He  saw  himself  going 
out  in  the  frost  to  the  woodshed  to  smoke.  His 
memory  of  Agatha  he  found  less  softened  by  the 
lapse  of  years  than  it  had  been  when  three  thou 
sand  miles  intervened.  It  was  unthinkable. 
No;  he  couldn't  do  it.  He  was  too  old,  too 
used  to  smoking  all  over  the  house,  to  do  the 
woodshed  stunt  now.  And  everything  de 
pended  on  how  he  began.  He  would  put  his 
foot  down.  He  would  smoke  in  the  house  that 
very  night  ...  in  the  kitchen,  he  feebly 
amended.  No,  by  George,  he  would  smoke 
now.  He  would  arrive  smoking.  Mentally 
imprecating  the  cold,  he  exposed  his  bare  hands 
and  lighted  another  cigar.  His  manhood 
seemed  to  flare  up  with  the  match.  He  would 
show  her  who  was  boss.  Right  from  the  drop 
of  the  hat  he  would  show  her. 

Josiah  Childs  had  been  born  in  this  house. 


156     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

And  it  was  long  before  he  was  born  that  his 
father  had  built  it.  Across  the  low  stone  fence, 
Josiah  could  see  the  kitchen  porch  and  door,  the 
connected  woodshed,  and  the  several  outbuild 
ings.  Fresh  from  the  West,  where  everything 
was  new  and  in  constant  flux,  he  was  astonished 
at  the  lack  of  change.  Everything  was  as  it 
had  always  been.  He  could  almost  see  him 
self,  a  boy,  doing  the  chores.  There,  in  the 
woodshed,  how  many  cords  of  wood  had  he 
bucksawed  and  split!  Well,  thank  the  Lord, 
that  was  past. 

The  walk  to  the  kitchen  showed  signs  of  re 
cent  snow-shovelling.  That  had  been  one  of 
his  tasks.  He  wondered  who  did  it  now,  and 
suddenly  remembered  that  Jiis  own  son  must  be 
twelve.  In  another  moment  he  would  have 
knocked  at  the  kitchen  door,  but  the  skreek  of 
a  bucksaw  from  the  woodshed  led  him  aside. 
He  looked  in  and  saw  a  boy  hard  at  work. 
Evidently,  this  was  his  son.  Impelled  by  the 
wave  of  warm  emotion  that  swept  over  him,  he 
all  but  rushed  in  upon  the  lad.  He  controlled 
himself  with  an  effort. 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       157 

u  Father  here?"  he  asked  curtly,  though 
from  under  the  stiff  brim  of  his  John  B.  Stetson 
he  studied  the  boy  closely. 

Sizable  for  his  age,  he  thought.  A  mite 
spare  in  the  ribs  maybe,  and  that  possibly  due 
to  rapid  growth.  But  the  face  strong  and 
pleasing  and  the  eyes  like  Uncle  Isaac's. 
When  all  was  said,  a  darn  good  sample. 

"  No,  sir,"  the  boy  answered,  resting  on  the 
saw-buck. 

"Where  is  he?" 

"  At  sea,"  was  the  answer. 

Jqsiah  Childs  felt  a  something  very  akin  to 
relief  and  joy  tingle  through  him.  Agatha  had 
married  again  —  evidently  a  seafaring  man. 
Next,  came  an  ominous,  creepy  sensation. 
Agatha  had  committed  bigamy.  He  remem 
bered  Enoch  Arden,  read  aloud  to  the  class  by 
the  teacher  in  the  old  schoolhouse,  and  began 
to  think  of  himself  as  a  hero.  He  would  do 
the  heroic.  By  George,  he  would.  He  would 
sneak  away  and  get  the  first  train  for  Cali 
fornia.  She  would  never  know. 

But  there  was  Agatha's  New  England  moral- 


158     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

ity,  and  her  New  England  conscience.  She  re 
ceived  a  regular  remittance.  She  knew  he  was 
alive.  It  was  impossible  that  she  could  have 
done  this  thing.  He  groped  wildly  for  a  solu 
tion.  Perhaps  she  had  sold  the  old  home,  and 
this  boy  was  somebody  else's  boy. 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  "  Josiah  asked. 

"  Johnnie, "  came  the  reply. 

"  Last  name  I  mean?  " 

"  Childs,  Johnnie  Childs." 

"  And  your  father's  name?  —  first  name?  " 

"  Josiah  Childs." 

"  And  he's  away  at  sea,  you  say  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

This  set  Josiah  wondering  again. 

"  What  kind  of  a  man  is  he?  " 

"  Oh,  he's  all  right  —  a  good  provider,  Mom 
says.  And  he  is.  He  always  sends  his  money 
home,  and  he  works  hard  for  it,  too,  Mom  says. 
She  says  he  always  was  a  good  worker,  and  he's 
better'n  other  men  she  ever  saw.  He  don't 
smoke,  or  drink,  or  swear,  or  do  anything  he 
oughtn't.  And  he  never  did.  He  was  always 
that  way,  Mom  says,  and  she  knew  him  all  her 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       159 

life  before  ever  they  got  married.  He's  a  very 
kind  man,  and  never  hurts  anybody's  feelings. 
Mom  says  he's  the  most  considerate  man  she 
ever  knew." 

Josiah's  heart  went  weak.  Agatha  had  done 
it  after  all  —  had  taken  a  second  husband  when 
she  knew  her  first  was  still  alive.  Well,  he  had 
learned  charity  in  the  West,  and  he  could  be 
charitable.  He  would  go  quietly  away.  No 
body  would  ever  know.  Though  it  was  rather 
mean  of  her,  the  thought  flashed  through  him, 
that  she  should  go  on  cashing  his  remittances 
when  she  was  married  to  so  model  and  steady- 
working  a  seafaring  husband  who  brought  his 
wages  home.  He  cudgelled  his  brains  in  an 
effort  to  remember  such  a  man  out  of  all  the 
East  Falls  men  he  had  known. 

"What's  he  look  like?" 

"  Don't  know.  Never  saw  him.  He's  at 
sea  all  the  time.  But  I  know  how  tall  he  is. 
Mom  says  I'm  goin'  to  be  bigger'n  him,  and  he 
was  five  feet  eleven.  There's  a  picture  of  him 
in  the  album.  His  face  is  thin,  and  he  has 
whiskers." 


160    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

A  great  illumination  came  to  Josiah.  He 
was  himself  five  feet  eleven.  He  had  worn 
whiskers,  and  his  face  had  been  thin  in  those 
days.  And  Johnnie  had  said  his  father's  name 
was  Josiah  Childs.  He,  Josiah,  was  this  model 
husband  who  neither  smoked,  swore,  nor  drank. 
He  was  this  seafaring  man  whose  memory  had 
been  so  carefully  shielded  by  Agatha's  forgiv 
ing  fiction.  He  warmed  toward  her.  She 
must  have  changed  mightily  since  he  left.  He 
glowed  with  penitence.  Then  his  heart  sank  as 
he  thought  of  trying  to  live  up  to  this  reputation 
Agatha  had  made  for  him.  This  boy  with  the 
trusting  blue  eyes  would  expect  it  of  him.  Well, 
he'd  have  to  do  it.  Agatha  had  been  almighty 
square  with  him.  He  hadn't  thought  she  had 
it  in  her. 

The  resolve  he  might  there  and  then  have 
taken  was  doomed  never  to  be,  for  he  heard  the 
kitchen  door  open  to  give  vent  to  a  woman's 
nagging,  irritable  voice. 

"  Johnnie !  —  you !  "  it  cried. 

How  often  had  he  heard  it  in  the  old  days: 
"  Josiah !  —  you !  "  A  shiver  went  through 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       161 

him.  Involuntarily,  automatically,  with  a  guilty 
start,  he  turned  his  hand  back  upward  so  that 
the  cigar  was  hidden.  He  felt  himself  shrink 
ing  and  shrivelling  as  she  stepped  out  on  the 
stoop.  It  was  his  unchanged  wife,  the  same 
shrew  wrinkles,  with  the  same  sour-drooping 
corners  to  the  thin-lipped  mouth.  But  there 
was  more  sourness,  an  added  droop,  the  lips 
were  thinner,  and  the  shrew  wrinkles  were 
deeper.  She  swept  Josiah  with  a  hostile,  with 
ering  stare. 

"  Do  you  think  your  father  would  stop  work 
to  talk  to  tramps?  "  she  demanded  of  the  boy, 
who  visibly  quailed,  even  as  Josiah. 

"  I  was  only  answering  his  questions," 
Johnnie  pleaded  doggedly  but  hopelessly. 
"  He  wanted  to  know  — " 

"  And  I  suppose  you  told  him,"  she  snapped. 
"What  business  is  it  of  his  prying  around? 
No,  and  he  gets  nothing  to  eat.  As  for  you, 
get  to  work  at  once.  I'll  teach  you,  idling  at 
your  chores.  Your  father  waVt  like  that. 
Can't  I  ever  make  you  like  him?  " 

Johnnie  bent  his  back,  and  the  bucksaw  re- 


162    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

sumed  its  protesting  skreek.  Agatha  surveyed 
Josiah  sourly.  It  was  patent  she  did  not  recog 
nise  him. 

"  You  be  off,"  she  commanded  harshly. 
"  None  of  your  snooping  around  here." 

Josiah  felt  the  numbness  of  paralysis  creeping 
over  him.  He  moistened  his  lips  and  tried  to 
say  something,  but  found  himself  bereft  of 
speech. 

"  You  be  off,  I  say,"  she  rasped  in  her  high- 
keyed  voice,  "  or  I'll  put  the  constable  after 
you." 

Josiah  turned  obediently.  He  heard  the 
door  slam  as  he  went  down  the  walk.  As  in  a 
nightmare  he  opened  the  gate  he  had  opened 
ten  thousand  times  and  stepped  out  on  the  side 
walk.  He  felt  dazed.  Surely  it  was  a  dream. 
Very  soon  he  would  wake  up  with  a  sigh  of  re 
lief.  He  rubbed  his  forehead  and  paused  in 
decisively.  The  monotonous  complaint  of  the 
bucksaw  came  to  his  ears.  If  that  boy  had  any 
of  the  old  Childs  spirit  in  him,  sooner  or  later 
he'd  run  away.  Agatha  was  beyond  the  en 
durance  of  human  flesh.  She  had  not  changed, 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER      163 

unless  for  the  worse,  if  such  a  thing  were  pos 
sible.  That  boy  would  surely  run  for  it,  may 
be  soon.  Maybe  now. 

Josiah  Childs  straightened  up  and  threw  his 
shoulders  back.  The  great-spirited  West,  with 
its  daring  and  its  carelessness  of  consequences 
when  mere  obstacles  stand  in  the  way  of  its  de 
sire,  flamed  up  in  him.  He  looked  at  his  watch, 
remembered  the  time  table,  and  spoke  to  him 
self,  solemnly,  aloud.  It  was  an  affirmation  of 
faith : 

"  I  don't  care  a  hang  about  the  law.  That 
boy  can't  be  crucified.  I'll  give  her  a  double 
allowance,  four  times,  anything,  but  he  goes 
with  me.  She  can  follow  on  to  California  if 
she  wants,  but  I'll  draw  up  an  agreement,  in 
which  what's  what,  and  she'll  sign  it,  and  live 
up  to  it,  by  George,  if  she  wants  to  stay.  And 
she  will,"  he  added  grimly.  "  She's  got  to 
have  somebody  to  nag." 

He  opened  the  gate  and  strode  back  to  the 
woodshed  door.  Johnnie  looked  up,  but  kept 
on  sawing. 

"  What'd  you  like  to  do  most  of  anything  in 


1 64     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

the  world?"  Josiah  demanded  in  a  tense,  low 
voice. 

Johnnie  hesitated,  and  almost  stopped  saw 
ing.  Josiah  made  signs  for  him  to  keep  it  up. 

"  Go  to  sea,"  Johnnie  answered.  "  Along 
with  my  father." 

Josiah  felt  himself  trembling. 

"  Would  you?  "  he  asked  eagerly. 

"  Would  I !  " 

The  look  of  joy  on  Johnnie's  face  decided 
everything. 

"  Come  here,  then.  Listen.  I'm  your 
father.  I'm  Josiah  Childs.  Did  you  ever 
want  to  run  away?  " 

Johnnie  nodded  emphatically. 

"  That's  what  I  did,"  Josiah  went  on.  "  I 
ran  away."  He  fumbled  for  his  watch  hur 
riedly.  "  We've  just  time  to  catch  the  train  for 
California.  I  live  there  now.  Maybe  Agatha, 
your  mother,  will  come  along  afterward.  I'll 
tell  you  all  about  it  on  the  train.  Come  on." 

He  gathered  the  half-frightened,  half-trust 
ing  boy  into  his  arms  for  a  moment,  then,  hand 
in  hand,  they  fled  across  the  yard,  out  of  the 


THE  PRODIGAL  FATHER       165 

gate,  and  down  the  street.     They  heard  the 
kitchen  door  open,  and  the  last  they  heard  was : 
"  Johnnie !  —  you !     Why  ain't  you  sawing? 
I'll  attend  to  your  case  directly !  " 


THE  FIRST  POET 

SCENE :  A  summer  plain,  the  eastern  side 
of  which  is  bounded  by  grassy  hills  of  lime 
stone,  the  other  sides  by  a  forest.  The  hill 
nearest  to  the  plain  terminates  in  a  cliff,  in  the 
face  of  which,  nearly  at  the  level  of  the  ground, 
are  four  caves,  with  low,  narrow  entrances. 
Before  the  caves,  and  distant  from  them  less 
than  one  hundred  feet,  is  a  broad,  flat  rock,  on 
which  are  laid  several  sharp  slivers  of  flint, 
which,  like  the  rock,  are  blood-stained.  Between 
the  rock  and  the  cave-entrances,  on  a  low  pile  of 
stones,  is  squatted  a  man,  stout  and  hairy. 
Across  his  knees  is  a  thick  club,  and  behind  him 
crouches  a  woman.  At  his  right  and  left  are 
two  men  somewhat  resembling  him,  and  like 
him,  bearing  wooden  clubs.  These  four  face 
the  west,  and  between  them  and  the  bloody  rock 
squat  some  threescore  of  cave-folk,  talking 
loudly  among  themselves.  It  is  late  afternoon. 

166 


THE  FIRST  POET  167 

The  name  of  him  on  the  pile  of  stones  is  Uk, 
the  name  of  his  mate,  Ala;  and  of  those  at  his 
right  and  left,  Ok  and  Un. 

Uk: 

Be  still! 

(Turning  to  the  woman  behind  him) 

Thou  seest  that  they  become  still.  None 
save  me  can  make  his  kind  be  still,  except  per 
haps  the  chief  of  the  apes,  when  in  the  night  he 
deems  he  hears  a  serpent.  ...  At  whom  dost 
thou  stare  so  long?  At  Oan?  Oan,  come  to 
me! 

Oan: 

I  am  thy  cub. 

Uk: 

Oan,  thou  art  a  fool ! 

Ok  and  Un: 

Ho !  ho !     Oan  is  a  fool ! 

All  the  Tribe: 
Ho !  ho !     Oan  is  a  fool ! 


1 68     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Oan: 
Why  am  I  a  fool? 

Uk: 

Dost  thou  not  chant  strange  words?  Last 
night  I  heard  thee  chant  strange  words  at  the 
mouth  of  thy  cave. 

Oan: 

Ay!  they  are  marvellous  words;  they  were 
born  within  me  in  the  dark. 

Uk: 

Art  thou  a  woman,  that  thou  shouldst  bring 
forth?  Why  dost  thou  not  sleep  when  it  is 
dark? 

Oan: 
I  did  half  sleep;  perhaps  I  dreamed. 

Uk: 

And  why  shouldst  thou  dream,  not  having 
had  more  than  thy  portion  of  flesh  ?  Hast  thou 
slain  a  deer  in  the  forest  and  brought  it  not  to 
the  Stone  ? 


THE  FIRST  POET  169 

All  the  Tribe: 

Wa!  iWa!  He  hath  slain  in  the  forest, 
and  brought  not  the  meat  to  the  Stone  1 

Uk: 

Be  still,  ye  I 
(To  Ala) 

Thou  seest  that  they  become  still.  .  .  .  Oan, 
hast  thou  slain  and  kept  to  thyself? 

Oan: 

Nay,  thou  knowest  that  I  am  not  apt  at  the 
chase.  Also  it  irks  me  to  squat  on  a  branch  all 
day  above  a  path,  bearing  a  rock  upon  my 
thighs.  Those  words  did  but  awaken  within 
me  when  I  was  peaceless  in  the  night. 

Uk: 
And  why  wast  thou  peaceless  in  the  night? 

Oan: 

Thy  mate  wept,  for  that  thou  didst  beat  her. 

Uk: 

Ay!  she  lamented  loudly.  But  thou  shalt 
make  thy  half-sleep  henceforth  at  the  mouth  of 


1 70    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

the  cave,  so  that  when  Gurr  the  tiger  cometh, 
thou  shalt  hear  him  sniff  between  the  boulders, 
and  shalt  strike  the  flints,  whose  stare  he  hatest. 
Gurr  cometh  nightly  to  the  caves. 

One  of  the  Tribe: 
Ay  I  Gurr  smelleth  the  Stone  I 

Uk: 

Be  still! 

(To  Ala) 

Had  he  not  become  still,  Ok  and  Un  would 
have  beaten  him  with  their  clubs.  .  .  .  But, 
Oan,  tell  us  those  words  that  were  born  to  thee 
when  Ala  did  weep. 

Oan  (arising): 

They  are  wonderful  words.     They  are  such : 
The  bright  day  is  gone  — 

Uk: 

Now  I  see  thou  art  liar  as  well  as  fool:  be 
hold,  the  day  is  not  gone ! 


THE  FIRST  POET  171 

Oan: 

But  the  day  was  gone  in  that  hour  when  my 
song  was  born  to  me. 

Uk: 

Then  shouldst  thou  have  sung  it  only  at  that 
time,  and  not  when  it  is  yet  day.  But  beware 
lest  thou  awaken  me  in  the  night.  Make  thou 
many  stars,  that  they  fly  in  the  whiskers  of  Gurr. 

Oan: 
My  song  is  even  of  stars. 

Uk: 

It  was  Ul,  thy  father's  wont,  ere  I  slew  him 
with  four  great  stones,  to  climb  to  the  tops  of 
the  tallest  trees  and  reach  forth  his  hand,  to 
see  if  he  might  not  pluck  a  star.  But  I  said: 
;<  Perhaps  they  be  as  chestnut-burs."  And  all 
the  tribe  did  laugh.  Ul  was  also  a  fool.  But 
what  dost  thou  sing  of  stars? 

Oan: 
I  will  begin  again: 


172     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

The  bright  day  is  gone. 

The  night  maketh  me  sad,  sad,  sad  — 

Uk: 

Nay,  the  night  maketh  thee  sad;  not  sad,  sad, 
sad.  For  when  I  say  to  Ala,  "  Gather  thou 
dried  leaves,"  I  say  not,  "  Gather  thou  dried 
leaves,  leaves,  leaves."  Thou  art  a  fool! 

Ok  and  Un: 

Thou  art  a  fool ! 

All  the  Tribe: 
Thou  art  a  fool ! 

Uk: 

Yea,  he  is  a  fool.  But  say  on,  Oan,  and  tell 
us  of  thy  chestnut-burs. 

Oan: 
I  will  begin  again: 

The  bright  day  is  gone  — 

Uk: 

Thou  dost  not  say,  "  gone,  gone,  gone !  " 


THE  FIRST  POET  173 

Oan: 

I  am  thy  cub.  Suffer  that  I  speak:  so  shall 
the  tribe  admire  greatly. 

Uk: 
Speak  on! 

Oan: 
I  will  begin  once  more  : 

The  bright  day  is  gone. 

The  night  maketh  me  sad,  sad  — 

Uk: 

Said  I  not  that  u  sad  "  should  be  spoken  but 
once  ?  Shall  I  set  Ok  and  Un  upon  thee  with 
their  branches? 

Oan: 

But  it  was  so  born  within  me  —  even  "  sad, 
sad—  " 

Uk: 

If  again  thou  twice  or  thrice  say  "  sad,"  thou 
shalt  be  dragged  to  the  Stone. 


174     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Oan: 
Ow !     Ow !     I  am  thy  cub !     Yet  listen : 

The  bright  day  is  gone. 
The  night  maketh  me  sad  — 

Ow!     Ow!  thou  makest  me  more  sad  than 
the  night  doth !     The  song  — 

Uk: 
Ok!     Un!     Be  prepared! 

Oan  (hastily): 
Nay!  have  mercy!     I  will  begin  afresh: 

The  bright  day  is  gone. 
The  night  maketh  me  sad. 
The— the  — the  — 

Uk: 

Thou  hast  forgotten,  and  art  a  fool!     See, 
Ala,  he  is  a  fool ! 

Ok  and  Un: 
He  is  a  fool ! 

All  the  Tribe: 
He  is  a  fool ! 


THE  FIRST  POET  175 

Oan: 

I  am  not  a  fool!  This  is  a  new  thing.  In 
the  past,  when  ye  did  chant,  O  men,  ye  did  leap 
about  the  Stone,  beating  your  breasts  and  crying, 
"  Hai,  hai,  hai!  "  Or,  if  the  moon  was  great, 
"  Hai,  hai!  hai,  hai,  hai!"  But  this  song  is 
made  even  with  such  words  as  ye  do  speak,  and 
is  a  great  wonder.  One  may  sit  at  the  cave's 
mouth,  and  moan  it  many  times  as  the  light 
goeth  out  of  the  sky. 

One  of  the  Tribe: 

Ay!  even  thus  doth  he  sit  at  the  mouth  of 
our  cave,  making  us  marvel,  and  more  especially 
the  women. 

Uk: 

Be  still!  .  .  .  When  I  would  make  women 
marvel,  I  do  show  them  a  wolf's  brains  upon  my 
club,  or  the  great  stone  that  I  cast,  or  perhaps 
do  whirl  my  arms  mightily,  or  bring  home  much 
meat.  How  should  a  man  do  otherwise?  I 
will  have  no  songs  in  this  place. 


176     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Can: 

Yet  suffer  that  I  sing  my  song  unto  the  tribe. 
Such  things  have  not  been  before.  It  may  be 
that  they  shall  praise  thee,  seeing  that  I  who  do 
make  this  song  am  thy  cub. 

Uk: 

Well,  let  us  have  the  song. 

Oan  (facing  the  tribe)  : 

The  bright  day  is  gone. 

The  night  maketh  me  sa  —  sad. 

But  the  stars  are  very  white. 

They  whisper  that  the  day  shall  return. 

O  stars ;  little  pieces  of  the  day ! 

Uk: 

This  is  indeed  madness.  Hast  thou  heard  a 
star  whisper?  Did  Ul,  thy  father,  tell  thee 
that  he  heard  the  stars  whisper  when  he  was  in 
the  tree-top?  And  of  what  moment  is  it  that 
a  star  be  a  piece  of  the  day,  seeing  that  its  light 
is  of  no  value?  Thou  art  a  fool ! 

Ok  and  Un: 

Thou  art  a  fool ! 


THE  FIRST  POET  177 

All  the  Tribe: 
Thou  art  a  fool ! 

Oan: 

But  it  was  so  born  unto  me.  And  at  that 
birth  it  was  as  though  I  would  weep,  yet  had  not 
been  stricken;  I  was  moreover  glad,  yet  none 
had  given  me  a  gift  of  meat 

Uk: 

It  is  a  madness.  How  shall  the  stars  profit 
us  ?  Will  they  lead  us  to  a  bear's  den,  or  where 
the  deer  foregather,  or  break  for  us  great  bones 
that  we  come  at  their  marrow  ?  Will  they  tell 
us  anything  at  all?  Wait  thou  until  the  night, 
and  we  shall  peer  forth  from  between  the 
boulders,  and  all  men  shall  take  note  that  the 
stars  cannot  whisper.  .  .  .  Yet  it  may  be  that 
they  are  pieces  of  the  day.  This  is  a  deep  mat 
ter. 

Oan: 

Ay!  they  are  pieces  of  the  moon  I 


1 78     THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

Uk: 

What  further  madness  is  this?  How  shall 
they  be  pieces  of  two  things  that  are  not  the 
same  ?  Also  it  was  not  thus  in  the  song. 

Oan: 

I  will  make  me  a  new  song.  We  do  change 
the  shape  of  wood  and  stone,  but  a  song  is  made 
out  of  nothing.  Ho  !  ho  !  I  can  fashion  things 
from  nothing!  Also  I  say  that  the  stars  come 
down  at  morning  and  become  the  dew. 

Uk: 

Let  us  have  no  more  of  these  stars.  It  may 
be  that  a  song  is  a  good  thing,  if  it  be  of  what 
a  man  knoweth.  Thus,  if  thou  singest  of  my 
club,  or  of  the  bear  that  I  slew,  of  the  stain  on 
the  Stone,  or  the  cave  and  the  warm  leaves  in 
the  cave,  it  might  be  well. 

Oan: 

I  will  make  thee  a  song  of  Ala  1 

Uk  (furiously): 

Thou  shalt  make  me  no  such  song!  Thou 
shalt  make  me  a  song  of  the  deer-liver  that  thou 


THE  FIRST  POET  179 

hast  eaten!  Did  I  not  give  to  thee  of  the  liver 
of  the  she-deer,  because  thou  didst  bring  me 
crawfish? 

Oan: 

Truly  I  did  eat  of  the  liver  of  the  she-deer; 
but  to  sing  thereof  is  another  matter. 

Uk: 

It  was  no  labour  for  thee  to  sing  of  the  stars. 
See  now  our  clubs  and  casting-stones,  with  which 
we  slay  flesh  to  eat;  also  the  caves  in  which  we 
dwell,  and  the  Stone  whereon  we  make  sacrifice; 
wilt  thou  sing  no  song  of  those? 

Oan: 

It  may  be  that  I  shall  sing  thee  songs  of  them. 
But  now,  as  I  strive  here  to  sing  of  the  doe's 
liver,  no  words  are  born  unto  me :  I  can  but  sing, 
"Oliver!  O  red  liver!" 

Uk: 

That  is  a  good  song:  thou  seest  that  the  liver 
is  red.  It  is  red  as  blood. 

Oan: 
But  I  love  not  the  liver,  save  to  eat  of  it. 


i8o    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Uk: 

Yet  the  song  of  it  is  good.  When  the  moon 
is  full  we  shall  sing  it  about  the  Stone.  We 
shall  beat  upon  our  breasts  and  sing,  "  O  liver! 
O  red  liver !  "  And  all  the  women  in  the  caves 
shall  be  affrightened. 

Oan: 

I  will  not  have  that  song  of  the  liver!  It 
shall  be  Ok's  song;  the  tribe  must  say,  "  Ok  hath 
made  the  song!  " 

Ok: 

Ay!  I  shall  be  a  great  singer;  I  shall  sing 
of  a  wolfs  heart,  and  say,  "  Behold,  it  is  red!  " 

Uk: 

Thou  art  a  fool,  and  shalt  sing  only,  "  Hai, 
hai !  "  as  thy  father  before  thee.  But  Oan  shall 
make  me  a  song  of  my  club,  for  the  women  listen 
to  his  songs. 

Oan: 

I  will  make  thee  no  songs,  neither  of  thy  club, 
nor  thy  cave,  nor  thy  doe's-liver.  Yea !  though 
thou  give  me  no  more  flesh,  yet  will  I  live  alone 


THE  FIRST  POET  181 

in  the  forest,  and  eat  the  seed  of  grasses,  and 
likewise  rabbits,  that  are  easily  snared.  And  I 
will  sleep  in  a  tree-top,  and  I  will  sing  nightly : 

The  bright  day  is  gone. 
The  night  maketh  me  sad,  sad,  sad, 
sad,  sad,  sad  — 

Uk: 

Ok  and  Un,  arise  and  slay ! 
(Ok  and  Un  rush  upon  Oan,  who  stoops  and 
picks  up  two  casting-stones,  with  one  of  which 
he  strikes  Ok  between  the  eyes,  and  with  the 
other  mashes  the  hand  of  Un,  so  that  he 
drops  his  club.  Uk  arises.) 

Uk: 

Behold!    Gurr   cometh!   he   cometh   swiftly 
from  the  wood ! 

(The  Tribe,  including  Oan  and  Ala,  rush  for 
the  cave-mouths.  As  Oan  passes  Uk,  the  lat 
ter  runs  behind  Oan  and  crushes  his  skull  with 
a  blow  of  his  club.) 

Uk: 

O  men!     O  men  with  the  heart  of  hyenas! 
Behold,  Gurr  cometh  not!     I  did  but  strive  to 


1 82    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

deceive  you,  that  I  might  the  more  easily  slay 
this  singer,  who  is  very  swift  of  foot.  .  .  . 
Gather  ye  before  me,  for  I  would  speak  wis 
dom.  ...  It  is  not  well  that  there  be  any  song 
among  us  other  than  what  our  fathers  sang  in 
the  past,  or,  if  there  be  songs,  let  them  be  of 
such  matters  as  are  of  common  understanding. 
If  a  man  sing  of  a  deer,  so  shall  he  be  drawn, 
it  may  be,  to  go  forth  and  slay  a  deer,  or  even 
a  moose.  And  if  he  sing  of  his  casting-stones, 
it  may  be  that  he  become  more  apt  in  the  use 
thereof.  And  if  he  sing  of  his  cave,  it  may  be 
that  he  shall  defend  it  more  stoutly  when  Gurr 
teareth  at  the  boulders.  But  it  is  a  vain  thing 
to  make  songs  of  the  stars,  that  seem  scornful 
even  of  me;  or  of  the  moon,  which  is  never  two 
nights  the  same;  or  of  the  day,  which  goeth 
about  its  business  and  will  not  linger  though  one 
pierce  a  she-babe  with  a  flint.  But  as  for  me, 
I  would  have  none  of  these  songs.  For  if  I 
sing  of  such  in  the  council,  how  shall  I  keep  my 
wits?  And  if  I  think  thereof,  when  at  the 
chase,  it  may  be  that  I  babble  it  forth,  and  the 
meat  hear  and  escape.  And  ere  it  be  time  to 


THE  FIRST  POET  183 

eat,  I  do  give  my  mind  solely  to  the  care  of  my 
hunting-gear.  And  if  one  sing  when  eating,  he 
may  fall  short  of  his  just  portion.  And  when 
one  hath  eaten,  doth  not  he  go  straightway  to 
sleep?  So  where  shall  men  find  a  space  for 
singing?  But  do  ye  as  ye  will:  as  for  me,  I 
will  have  none  of  these  songs  and  stars. 

Be  it  also  known  to  all  the  women  that  if,  re 
membering  these  wild  words  of  Oan,  they  do 
sing  them  to  themselves,  or  teach  them  to  the 
young  ones,  they  shall  be  beaten  with  brambles. 
Cause  swiftly  that  the  wife  of  Ok  cease  from  her 
wailing,  and  bring  hither  the  horses  that  were 
slain  yesterday,  that  I  may  apportion  them. 
Had  Oan  wisdom,  he  might  have  eaten  thereof; 
and  had  a  mammoth  fallen  into  our  pit,  he  might 
have  feasted  many  days.  But  Oan  was  a  fool! 

Un: 
Oan  was  a  fool ! 

'd II  the  Tribe: 
Oan  was  a  fool ! 


FINIS 

IT  was  the  last  of  Morganson's  bacon.  In  all 
his  life  he  had  never  pampered  his  stomach. 
In  fact,  his  stomach  had  been  a  sort  of  negligible 
quantity  that  bothered  him  little,  and  about 
which  he  thought  less.  But  now,  in  the  long 
absence  of  wonted  delights,  the  keen  yearning  of 
his  stomach  was  tickled  hugely  by  the  sharp, 
salty  bacon. 

His  face  had  a  wistful,  hungry  expression. 
The  cheeks  were  hollow,  and  the  skin  seemed 
stretched  a  trifle  tightly  across  the  cheek-bones. 
His  pale  blue  eyes  were  troubled.  There  was 
that  in  them  that  showed  the  haunting  immi 
nence  of  something  terrible.  Doubt  was  in 
them,  and  anxiety  and  foreboding.  The  thin 
lips  were  thinner  than  they  were  made  to  be, 
and  they  seemed  to  hunger  towards  the  polished 
frying-pan. 

He  sat  back  and  drew  forth  a  pipe.  He 
looked  into  it  with  sharp  scrutiny,  and  tapped  it 

184 


FINIS  185 

emptily  on  his  open  palm.  He  turned  the  hair- 
seal  tobacco  pouch  inside  out  and  dusted  the 
lining,  treasuring  carefully  each  flake  and  mite 
of  tobacco  that  his  efforts  gleaned.  The  result 
was  scarce  a  thimbleful.  He  searched  in  his 
pockets,  and  brought  forward,  between  thumb 
and  forefinger,  tiny  pinches  of  rubbish.  Here 
and  there  in  this  rubbish  were  crumbs  of  tobacco. 
These  he  segregated  with  microscopic  care, 
though  he  occasionally  permitted  small  particles 
of  foreign  substance  to  accompany  the  crumbs 
to  the  hoard  in  his  palm.  He  even  deliberately 
added  small,  semi-hard  woolly  fluffs,  that  had 
come  originally  from  the  coat  lining,  and  that 
had  lain  for  long  months  in  the  bottoms  of  the 
pockets. 

At  .the  end  of  fifteen  minutes  he  had  the  pipe 
part  filled/  He  lighted  it  from  the  camp  fire, 
and  sat  forward  on  the  blankets,  toasting  his 
moccasined  feet  and  smoking  parsimoniously. 
When  the  pipe  was  finished  he  sat  on,  brooding 
into  the  dying  flame  of  the  fire.  Slowly  the 
worry  went  out  of  his  eyes  and  resolve  came  in. 
Out  of  the  chaos  of  his  fortunes  he  had  finally 


1 86    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

achieved  a  way.  But  it  was  not  a  pretty  way. 
His  face  had  become  stern  and  wolfish,  and  the 
thin  lips  were  drawn  very  tightly. 

^VVith  resolve  came  action.  He  pulled  him 
self  stiffly  to  his  feet  and  proceeded  to  break 
camp.  He  packed  the  rolled  blankets,  the  fry 
ing-pan,  rifle,  and  axe  on  the  sled,  and  passed 
a  lashing  around  the  load.  Then  he  warmed 
his  hands  at  the  fire  and  pulled  on  his  mittens. 
He  was  foot-sore,  and  limped  noticeably  as  he 
took  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  sled.  .  When 
he  put  the  looped  haul-rope  over  his  shoulder, 
and  leant  his  weight  against  it  to  start  the  sled, 
he  winced.  His  flesh  was  galled  by  many  days 
of  contact  with  the  haul-ropqj 

The  trail  led  along  the  frozen  breast  of  the 
Yukon.  At  the  end  of  four  hours  he  came 
around  a  bend  and  entered  the  town  of  Minto. 
It  was  perched  on  top  of  a  high  earth  bank  in 
the  midst  of  a  clearing,  and  consisted  of  a  road 
house,  a  saloon,  and  several  cabins.  He  left  his 
sled  at  the  door  and  entered  the  saloon. 

"  Enough  for  a  drink?  "  he  asked,  laying  an 
apparently  empty  gold  sack  upon  the  bar. 


FINIS  187 

The  barkeeper  looked  sharply  at  it  and  him, 
then  set  out  a  bottle  and  a  glass. 

"  Never  mind  the  dust,"  he  said. 

"  Go  on  and  take  it,"  Morganson  insisted. 

The  barkeeper  held  the  sack  mouth  down 
ward  over  the  scales  and  shook  it,  and  a  few 
flakes  of  gold  dust  fell  out.  Morganson  took 
the  sack  from  him,  turned  it  inside  out,  and 
dusted  it  carefully. 

"  I  thought  there  was  half-a-dollar  in  it,"  he 
said. 

"  Not  quite,"  answered  the  other,  "  but  near 
enough.  I'll  get  it  back  with  the  down  weight 
on  the  next  comer." 

Morganson  shyly  poured  the  whisky  into  the 
glass,  partly  filling  it. 

"  Go  on,  make  it  a  man's  drink,"  the  bar 
keeper  encouraged. 

Morganson  tilted  the  bottle  and  filled  the 
glass  to  the  brim.  He  drank  the  liquor  slowly, 
pleasuring  in  the  fire  of  it  that  bit  his  tongue, 
sank  hotly  down  his  throat,  and  with  warm, 
gentle  caresses  permeated  his  stomach. 

"  Scurvy,  eh?  "  the  barkeeper  asked. 


1 88     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  A  touch  of  it,"  he  answered.  "  But  I 
haven't  begun  to  swell  yet.  Maybe  I  can  get  to 
Dyea  and  fresh  vegetables,  and  beat  it  out." 

"  Kind  of  all  in,  I'd  say,"  the  other  laughed 
sympathetically.  :*  No  dogs,  no  money,  and 
the  scurvy.  I'd  try  spruce  tea  if  I  was  you." 

At  the  end  of  half-an-hour,  Morganson  said 
good-bye  and  left  the  saloon.  He  put  his 
galled  shoulder  to  the  haul-rope  and  took  the 
river-trail  south.  An  hour  later  he  halted. 
An  inviting  swale  left  the  river  and  led  off  to  the 
right  at  an  acute  angle.  He  left  his  sled  and 
limped  up  the  swale  for  half  a  mile.  Between 
him  and  the  river  was  three  hundred  yards  of 
flat  ground  covered  with  cottonwoods.  He 
crossed  the  cottonwoods  to  the  bank  of  the 
Yukon.  The  trail  went  by  just  beneath,  but  he 
did  not  descend  to  it.  South  toward  Selkirk 
he  could  see  the  trail  widen  its  sunken  length 
through  the  snow  for  over  a  mile.  But  to  the 
north,  in  the  direction  of  Minto,  a  tree-covered 
out-jut  in  the  bank  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away 
screened  the  trail  from  him. 

He  seemed  satisfied  with  the  view  and  re- 


FINIS  189 

turned  to  the  sled  the  way  he  had  come.  He 
put  the  haul-rope  over  his  shoulder  and  dragged 
the  sled  up  the  swale.  The  snow  was  unpacked 
and  soft,  and  it  was  hard  work.  The  runners 
clogged  and  stuck,  and  he  was  panting  severely 
ere  he  had  covered  the  half-mile.  Night  had 
come  on  by  the  time  he  had  pitched  his  small 
tent,  set  up  the  sheet-iron  stove,  and  chopped  a 
supply  of  firewood.  He  had  no  candles,  and 
contented  himself  with  a  pot  of  tea  before  crawl 
ing  into  his  blankets. 

In  the  morning,  as  soon  as  he  got  up,  he  drew 
on  his  mittens,  pulled  the  flaps  of  his  cap  down 
over  his  ears,  and  crossed  through  the  cotton- 
woods  to  the  Yukon.  He  took  his  rifle  with 
him.  As  before,  he  did  not  descend  the  bank. 
He  watched  the  empty  trail  for  an  hour,  beating 
his  hands  and  stamping  his  feet  to  keep  up  the 
circulation,  then  returned  to  the  tent  for  break 
fast.  There  was  little  tea  left  in  the  canister 
—  half  a  dozen  drawings  at  most;  but  so 
meagre  a  pinch  did  he  put  in  the  teapot  that  he 
bade  fair  to  extend  the  lifetime  of  the  tea  in 
definitely.  His  entire  food  supply  consisted  of 


190    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

half-a-sack  of  flour  and  a  part-full  can  of  baking 
powder.  He  made  biscuits,  and  ate  them 
slowly,  chewing  each  mouthful  with  infinite 
relish.  When  he  had  had  three  he  called  a  halt. 
He  debated  a  while,  reached  for  another  biscuit, 
then  hesitated.  He  turned  to  the  part  sack  of 
flour,  lifted  it,  and  judged  its  weight. 

"  I'm  good  for  a  couple  of  weeks,"  he  spoke 
aloud. 

"  Maybe  three,"  he  added,  as  he  put  the  bis 
cuits  away. 

Again  he  drew  on  his  mittens,  pulled  down 
his  ear-flaps,  took  the  rifle,  and  went  out  to 
his  station  on  the  river  bank.  He  crouched  in 
the  snow,  himself  unseen,  and  watched.  After 
a  few  minutes  of  inaction,  the  frost  began  to 
bite  in,  and  he  rested  the  rifle  across  his  knees 
and  beat  his  hands  back  and  forth.  Then  the 
sting  in  his  feet  became  intolerable,  and  he 
stepped  back  from  the  bank  and  tramped  heavily 
up  and  down  among  the  trees.  But  he  did  not 
tramp  long  at  a  time.  Every  several  minutes 
he  came  to  the  edge  of  the  bank  and  peered  up 
and  down  the  trail,  as  though  by  sheer  will  he 


FINIS  191 

could  materialise  the  form  of  a  man  upon  it. 
The  short  morning  passed,  though  it  had  seemed 
century-long  to  him,  and  the  trail  remained 
empty. 

It  was  easier  in  the  afternoon,  watching  by 
the  bank.  The  temperature  rose,  and  soon  the 
snow  began  to  fall  —  dry  and  fine  and  crystal 
line.  There  was  no  wind,  and  it  fell  straight 
down,  in  quiet  monotony.  He  crouched  with 
eyes  closed,  his  head  upon  his  knees,  keeping 
his  watch  upon  the  trail  with  his  ears.  But  no 
whining  of  dogs,  churning  of  sleds,  nor  cries 
of  drivers  broke  the  silence.  With  twilight  he 
returned  to  the  tent,  cut  a  supply  of  firewood, 
ate  two  biscuits,  and  crawled  into  his  blankets. 
He  slept  restlessly,  tossing  about  and  groaning; 
and  at  midnight  he  got  up  and  ate  another  bis 
cuit. 

Each  day  grew  colder.  Four  biscuits  could 
not  keep  up  the  heat  of  his  body,  despite  the 
quantities  of  hot  spruce  tea  he  drank,  and  he 
increased  his  allowance,  morning  and  evening, 
to  three  biscuits.  In  the  middle  of  the  day  he 
ate  nothing,  contenting  himself  with  several 


192     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

cups  of  excessively  weak  real  tea.  This  pro 
gramme  became  routine.  In  the  morning  three 
biscuits,  at  noon  real  tea,  and  at  night  three 
biscuits.  In  between  he  drank  spruce  tea  for 
his  scurvy.  He  caught  himself  making  larger 
biscuits,  and  after  a  severe  struggle  with  him 
self  went  back  to  the  old  size. 

On  the  fifth  day  the  trail  returned  to  life. 
To  the  south  a  dark  object  appeared,  and 
grew  larger.  Morganson  became  alert.  He 
worked  his  rifle,  ejecting  a  loaded  cartridge 
from  the  chamber,  by  the  same  action  replacing 
it  with  another,  and  returning  the  ejected  cart 
ridge  into  the  magazine.  He  lowered  the  trig 
ger  to  half-cock,  and  drew  on  his  mitten  to  keep 
the  trigger-hand  warm.  As  the  dark  object 
came  nearer  he  made  it  out  to  be  a  man,  without 
dogs  or  sled,  travelling  light.  He  grew  nerv 
ous,  cocked  the  trigger,  then  put  it  back  to  half- 
cock  again.  The  man  developed  into  an  Indian, 
and  Morganson,  with  a  sigh  of  disappointment, 
dropped  the  rifle  across  his  knees.  The  Indian 
went  on  past  and  disappeared  towards  Minto 
behind  the  out-jutting  clump  of  trees. 


FINIS  193 

But  Morganson  conceived  an  idea.  He 
changed  his  crouching  spot  to  a  place  where  cot- 
tonwood  limbs  projected  on  either  side  of  him. 
Into  these  with  his  axe  he  chopped  two  broad 
notches.  Then  in  one  of  the  notches  he  rested 
the  barrel  of  his  rifle  and  glanced  along  the 
sights.  He  covered  the  trail  thoroughly  in  that 
direction.  He  turned  about,  rested  the  rifle 
in  the  other  notch,  and,  looking  along  the  sights, 
swept  the  trail  to  the  clump  of  trees  behind 
which  it  disappeared. 

He  never  descended  to  the  trail.  A  man 
travelling  the  trail  could  have  no  knowledge  of 
his  lurking  presence  on  the  bank  above.  The 
snow  surface  was  unbroken.  There  was  no 
place  where  his  tracks  left  the  main  trail. 

As  the  nights  grew  longer,  his  periods  of  day 
light  watching  of  the  trail  grew  shorter.  Once 
a  sled  went  by  with  jingling  bells  in  the  dark 
ness,  and  with  sullen  resentment  he  chewed  his 
biscuits  and  listened  to  the  sounds.  Chance 
conspired  against  him.  Faithfully  he  had 
watched  the  trail  for  ten  days,  suffering  from 
the  cold  all  the  prolonged  torment  of  the 


i94    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

damned,  and  nothing  had  happened.  Only  an 
Indian,  travelling  light,  had  passed  in.  Now, 
in  the  night,  when  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
watch,  men  and  dogs  and  a  sled  loaded  with  life, 
passed  out,  bound  south  to  the  sea  and  the  sun 
and  civilisation. 

So  it  was  that  he  conceived  of  the  sled  for 
which  he  waited.  It  was  loaded  with  life,  his 
life.  His  life  was  fading,  fainting,  gasping 
away  in  the  tent  in  the  snow.  He  was  weak 
from  lack  of  food,  and  could  not  travel  of  him 
self.  But  on  the  sled  for  which  he  waited  were 
dogs  that  would  drag  him,  food  that  would  fan 
up  the  flame  of  his  life,  money  that  would 
furnish  sea  and  sun  and  civilisation.  Sea  and 
sun  and  civilisation  became  terms  interchange 
able  with  life,  his  life,  and  they  were  loaded 
there  on  the  sled  for  which  he  waited.  The 
idea  became  an  obsession,  and  he  grew  to  think 
of  himself  as  the  rightful  and  deprived  owner 
of  the  sled-load  of  life. 

His  flour  was  running  short,  and  he  went 
back  to  two  biscuits  in  the  morning  and  two  bis 
cuits  at  night.  Because  of  this  his  weakness 


FINIS  195 

increased  and  the  cold  bit  in  more  savagely,  and 
day  by  day  he  watched  by  the  dead  trail  that 
would  not  live  for  him.  At  last  the  scurvy  en 
tered  upon  its  next  stage.  The  skin  was  unable 
longer  to  cast  off  the  impurity  of  the  blood,  and 
the  result  was  that  the  body  began  to  swell. 
His  ankles  grew  puffy,  and  the  ache  in  them  kept 
him  awake  long  hours  at  night.  Next,  the 
swelling  jumped  to  his  knees,  and  the  sum  of  his 
pain  was  more  than  doubled. 

Then  there  came  a  cold  snap.  The  temper 
ature  went  down  and  down  —  forty,  fifty,  sixty 
degrees  below  zero.  He  had  no  thermometer, 
but  this  he  knew  by  the  signs  and  natural  phe 
nomena  understood  by  all  men  in  that  country 
—  the  crackling  of  water  thrown  on  the  snow, 
the  swift  sharpness  of  the  bite  of  the  frost,  and 
the  rapidity  with  which  his  breath  froze  and 
coated  the  canvas  walls  and  roof  of  the  tent. 
Vainly  he  fought  the  cold  and  strove  to  main 
tain  his  watch  on  the  bank.  In  his  weak  con 
dition  he  was  an  easy  prey,  and  the  frost  sank 
its  teeth  deep  into  him  before  he  fled  away  to 
the  tent  and  crouched  by  the  fire.  His  nose 


196    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

and  cheeks  were  frozen  and  turned  black,  and 
his  left  thumb  had  frozen  inside  the  mitten. 
He  concluded  that  he  would  escape  with  the 
loss  of  the  first  joint. 

Then  it  was,  beaten  into  the  tent  by  the  frost, 
t  the  trail,  with  monstrous  irony,  suddenly 
teemed  with  life,  j  Three  sleds  went  by  the  first 
day,  and  two  tile  second.  Once,  during  each 
day,  he  fought  his  way  out  to  the  bank  only  to 
succumb  and  retreat,  and  each  of  the  two  times, 
within  half-an-hour  after  he  retreated,  a  sled 
went  by. 

The  cold  snap  broke,  and  he  was  able  to  re 
main  by  the  bank  once  more,  and  the  trail  died 
again.  For  a  week  he  crouched  and  watched, 
and  never  life  stirred  along  it,  not  a  soul  passed 
in  or  out.  He  had  cut  down  to  one  biscuit  night 
and  morning,  and  somehow  he  did  not  seem 
to  notice  it.  Sometimes  he  marvelled  at  the 
way  life  remained  in  him.  He  never  would 
have  thought  it  possible  to  endure  so  much. 

When  the  trail  fluttered  anew  with  life  it 
was  life  with  which  he  could  not  cope.  A  de 
tachment  of  the  North-West  police  went  by,  a 


FINIS  197 

score  of  them,  with  many  sleds  and  dogs;  and 
he  cowered  down  on  the  bank  above,  and  they 
were  unaware  of  the  menace  of  death  that 
lurked  in  the  form  of  a  dying  man  beside  the 
trail. 

His  frozen  thumb  gave  him  a  great  deal  of 
trouble.  While  watching  by  the  bank  he  got 
into  the  habit  of  taking  his  mitten  off  and  thrust 
ing  the  hand  inside  his  shirt  so  as  to  rest  the 
thumb  in  the  warmth  of  his  arm-pit.  A  mail 
carrier  came  over  the  trail,  and  Morganson  let 
him  pass.  A  mail  carrier  was  an  important 
person,  and  was  sure  to  be  missed  immediately. 

On  the  first  day  after  his  last  flour  had  gone 
it  snowed.  It  was  always  warm  when  the  snow 
fell,  and  he  sat  out  the  whole  eight  hours  of  day 
light  on  the  bank,  without  movement,  terribly 
hungry  and  terribly  patient,  for  all  the  world 
like  a  monstrous  spider  waiting  for  its  prey. 
But  the  prey  did  not  come,  and  he  hobbled  back 
to  the  tent  through  the  darkness,  drank  quarts 
of  spruce  tea  and  hot  water,  and  went  to  bed. 
The  next  morning  circumstance  eased  its  grip 
on  him.  As  he  started  to  come  out  of  the  tent 


198     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

he  saw  a  huge  bull-moose  crossing  the  swale 
some  four  hundred  yards  away.  Morganson 
felt  a  surge  and  bound  of  the  blood  in  him,  and 
then  went  unaccountably  weak.  A  nausea  over 
powered  him,  and  he  was  compelled  to  sit  down 
a  moment  to  recover.  Then  he  reached  for  his 
rifle  and  took  careful  aim.  The  first  shot  was 
a  hit:  he  knew  it;  but  the  moose  turned  and 
broke  for  the  wooded  hillside  that  came  down 
to  the  swale.  Morganson  pumped  bullets 
wildly  among  the  trees  and  brush  at  the  fleeing 
animal,  until  it  dawned  upon  him  that  he  was 
exhausting  the  ammunition  he  needed  for  the 
sled-load  of  life  for  which  he  waited. 

He  stopped  shooting,  and  watched.  He 
noted  the  direction  of  the  animal's  flight,  and, 
high  up  on  the  hillside  in  an  opening  among  the 
trees,  saw  the  trunk  of  a  fallen  pine.  Continu 
ing  the  moose's  flight  in  his  mind  he  saw  that  it 
must  pass  the  trunk.  He  resolved  on  one  more 
shot,  and  in  the  empty  air  above  the  trunk  he 
aimed  and  steadied  his  wavering  rifle.  The 
animal  sprang  into  his  field  of  vision,  with  lifted 
fore-legs  as  it  took  the  leap.  He  pulled  the 


FINIS  199 

trigger.  With  the  explosion  the  moose  seemed 
to  somersault  in  the  air.  It  crashed  down  to 
earth  in  the  snow  beyond  and  flurried  the  snow 
into  dust. 

Morganson  dashed  up  the  hillside  —  at  least 
he  started  to  dash  up.  The  next  he  knew  he 
was  coming  out  of  a  faint  and  dragging  himself 
to  his  feet.  He  went  up  more  slowly,  pausing 
from  time  to  time  to  breathe  and  to  steady  his 
reeling  senses.  At  last  he  crawled  over  the 
trunk.  The  moose  lay  before  him.  He  sat 
down  heavily  upon  the  carcase  and  laughed. 
He  buried  his  face  in  his  mittened  hands  and 
laughed  some  more. 

He  shook  the  hysteria  from  him.  He  drew 
his  hunting  knife  and  worked  as  rapidly  as  his 
injured  thumb  and  weakness  would  permit  him. 
He  did  not  stop  to  skin  the  moose,  but  quartered 
it  with  its  hide  on.  It  was  a  Klondike  of  meat. 

When  he  had  finished  he  selected  a  piece  of 
meat  weighing  a  hundred  pounds,  and  started 
to  drag  it  down  to  the  tent.  But  the  snow  was 
soft,  and  it  was  too  much  for  him.  He  ex 
changed  it  for  a  twenty-pound  piece,  and,  with 


200    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

many  pauses  to  rest,  succeeded  in  getting  it  to 
the  tent.  He  fried  some  of  the  meat,  but  ate 
sparingly.  Then,  and  automatically,  he  went 
out  to  his  crouching  place  on  the  bank.  There 
were  sled-tracks  in  the  fresh  snow  on  the  trail. 
The  sled-load  of  life  had  passed  by  while  he  had 
been  cutting  up  the  moose. 

But  he  did  not  mind.  He  was  glad  that  the 
sled  had  not  passed  before  the  coming  of  the 
moose.  The  moose  had  changed  his  plans. 
Its  meat  was  worth  fifty  cents  a  pound,  and  he 
was  but  little  more  than  three  miles  from  Minto. 
He  need  no  longer  wait  for  the  sled-load  of 
life.  The  moose  was  the  sled-load  of  life.  He 
would  sell  it.  He  would  buy  a  couple  of  dogs 
at  Minto,  some  food  and  some  tobacco,  and 
the  dogs  would  haul  him  south  along  the  trail  to 
the  sea,  the  sun,  and  civilisation. 

He  felt  hungry.  The  dull,  monotonous  ache 
of  hunger  had  now  become  a  sharp  and  insistent 
pang.  He  hobbled  back  to  the  tent  and  fried 
a  slice  of  meat.  After  that  he  smoked  two 
whole  pipefuls  of  dried  tea  leaves.  Then  he 
fried  another  slice  of  moose.  He  was  aware 


FINIS  201 

of  an  unwonted  glow  of  strength,  and  went  out 
and  chopped  some  firewood.  He  followed  that 
up  with  a  slice  of  meat.  Teased  on  by  the  food, 
his  hunger  grew  into  an  inflammation.  It  be 
came  imperative  every  little  while  to  fry  a  slice 
of  meat.  He  tried  smaller  slices  and  found 
himself  frying  oftener. 

In  the  middle  of  the  day  he  thought  of  the 
wild  animals  that  might  eat  his  meat,  and  he 
climbed  the  hill,  carrying  along  his  axe,  the 
haul  rope,  and  a  sled  lashing.  In  his  weak 
state  the  making  of  the  cache  and  storing  of 
the  meat  was  an  all-afternoon  task.  He  cut 
young  saplings,  trimmed  them,  and  tied  them 
together  into  a  tall  scaffold.  It  was  not  so 
strong  a  cache  as  he  would  have  desired  to 
make,  but  he  had  done  his  best.  To  hoist  the 
meat  to  the  top  was  heart-breaking.  The 
larger  pieces  defied  him  until  he  passed  the  rope 
over  a  limb  above,  and,  with  one  end  fast  to  a 
piece  of  meat,  put  all  his  weight  on  the  other 
end. 

Once  in  the  tent,  he  proceeded  to  indulge  in 
a  prolonged  and  solitary  orgy.  He  did  not 


202     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

need  friends.  His  stomach  and  he  were  com 
pany.  Slice  after  slice  and  many  slices  of  meat 
he  fried  and  ate.  He  ate  pounds  of  the  meat. 
He  brewed  real  tea,  and  brewed  it  strong.  He 
brewed  the  last  he  had.  It  did  not  matter. 
On  the  morrow  he  would  be  buying  tea  in 
Minto.  When  it  seemed  he  could  eat  no  more, 
he  smoked.  He  smoked  all  his  stock  of  dried 
tea  leaves.  What  of  it?  On  the  morrow  he 
would  be  smoking  tobacco.  He  knocked  out 
his  pipe,  fried  a  final  slice,  and  went  to  bed. 
He  had  eaten  so  much  he  seemed  bursting,  yet 
he  got  out  of  his  blankets  and  had  just  one  more 
mouthful  of  meat. 

In  the  morning  he  awoke  as  from  the  sleep 
of  death.  In  his  ears  were  strange  sounds. 
He  did  not  know  where  he  was,  and  looked 
about  him  stupidly  until  he  caught  sight  of  the 
frying-pan  with  the  last  piece  of  meat  in  it, 
partly  eaten.  Then  he  remembered  all,  and 
with  a  quick  start  turned  his  attention  to  the 
strange  sounds.  He  sprang  from  the  blankets 
with  an  oath.  His  scurvy-ravaged  legs  gave 
way  under  him  and  he  winced  with  the  pain. 


FINIS  203 

He  proceeded  more  slowly  to  put  on  his  mocca 
sins  and  leave  the  tent. 

From  the  cache  up  the  hillside  arose  a  con 
fused  noise  of  snapping  and  snarling,  punctuated 
by  occasional  short,  sharp  yelps.  He  increased 
his  speed  at  much  expense  of  pain,  and  cried 
loudly  and  threateningly.  He  saw  the  wolves 
'  hurrying  away  through  the  snow  and  under 
brush,  many  of  them,  and  he  saw  the  scaffold 
down  on  the  ground.  The  animals  were  heavy 
with  the  meat  they  had  eaten,  and  they  were  con 
tent  to  slink  away  and  leave  the  wreckage. 

The  way  of  the  disaster  was  clear  to  him. 
The  wolves  had  scented  his  cache.  One  of 
them  had  leapt  from  the  trunk  of  the  fallen  tree 
to  the  top  of  the  cache.  He  could  see  marks 
of  the  brute's  paws  in  the  snow  that  covered  the 
trunk.  He  had  not  dreamt  a  wolf  could  leap 
so  far.  A  second  had  followed  the  first,  and  a 
third  and  fourth,  until  the  flimsy  scaffold  had 
gone  down  under  their  weight  and  movement. 

His  eyes  were  hard  and  savage  for  a  moment 
as  he  contemplated  the  extent  of  the  calamity; 
then  the  old  look  of  patience  returned  into  them, 


204    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

and  he  began  to  gather  together  the  bones  well 
picked  and  gnawed.  There  was  marrow  in 
them,  he  knew;  and  also,  here  and  there,  as  he 
sifted  the  snow,  he  found  scraps  of  meat  that 
had  escaped  the  maws  of  the  brutes  made  care 
less  by  plenty. 

He  spent  the  rest  of  the  morning  dragging 
the  wreckage  of  the  moose  down  the  hillside. 
In  addition,  he  had  at  least  ten  pounds  left  of 
the  chunk  of  meat  he  had  dragged  down  the 
previous  day. 

"  I'm  good  for  weeks  yet,"  was  his  comment 
as  he  surveyed  the  heap. 

He  had  learnt  how  to  starve  and  live.  He 
cleaned  his  rifle  and  counted  the  cartridges  that 
remained  to  him.  There  were  seven.  He 
loaded  the  weapon  and  hobbled  out  to  his 
crouching-place  on  the  bank.  All  day  he 
watched  the  dead  trail.  He  watched  all  the 
week,  but  no  life  passed  over  it. 

Thanks  to  the  meat  he  felt  stronger,  though 
his  scurvy  was  worse  and  more  painful.  He 
now  lived  upon  soup,  drinking  endless  gallons 
of  the  thin  product  of  the  boiling  of  the  moose 


FINIS  205 

bones.  The  soup  grew  thinner  and  thinner  as 
he  cracked  the  bones  and  boiled  them  over  and 
over;  but  the  hot  water  with  the  essence  of  the 
meat  in  it  was  good  for  him,  and  he  was  more 
vigorous  than  he  had  been  previous  to  the  shoot 
ing  of  the  moose. 

It  was  in  the  next  week  that  a  new  factor  en 
tered  into  Morganson's  life.  He  wanted  to 
know  the  date.  It  became  an  obsession.  He 
pondered  and  calculated,  but  his  conclusions 
were  rarely  twice  the  same.  The  first  thing  in 
the  morning  and  the  last  thing  at  night,  and  all 
day  as  well,  watching  by  the  trail,  he  worried 
about  it.  He  awoke  at  night  and  lay  awake  for 
hours  over  the  problem.  To  have  known  the 
date  would  have  been  of  no  value  to  him ;  but  his 
curiosity  grew  until  it  equalled  his  hunger  and 
his  desire  to  live.  Finally  it  mastered  him,  and 
he  resolved  to  go  to  Minto  and  find  out. 

It  was  dark  when  he  arrived  at  Minto,  but 
this  served  him.  No  one  saw  him  arrive.  Be 
sides,  he  knew  he  would  have  moonlight  by 
which  to  return.  He  climbed  the  bank  and 
pushed  open  the  saloon  door.  The  light  daz- 


206    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

zled  him.  The  source  of  it  was  several  candles, 
but  he  had  been  living  for  long  in  an  unlighted 
tent.  As  his  eyes  adjusted  themselves,  he  saw 
three  men  sitting  around  the  stove.  They  were 
trail-travellers  —  he  knew  it  at  once ;  and  since 
they  had  not  passed  in,  they  were  evidently 
bound  out.  They  would  go  by  his  tent  next 
morning. 

The  barkeeper  emitted  a  long  and  marvelling 
whistle. 

"  I  thought  you  was  dead,"  he  said. 

"Why?"  Morganson  asked  in  a  faltering 
voice. 

He  had  become  unused  to  talking,  and  he 
was  not  acquainted  with  the  sound  of  his  own 
voice.  It  seemed  hoarse  and  strange. 

"  YouVe  been  dead  for  more'n  two  months, 
now,"  the  barkeeper  explained.  "  You  left 
here  going  south,  and  you  never  arrived  at  Sel 
kirk.  Where  have  you  been?  " 

"  Chopping  wood  for  the  steamboat  com 
pany,"  Morganson  lied  unsteadily. 

He  was  still  trying  to  become  acquainted  with 
his  own  voice.  He  hobbled  across  the  floor  and 


FINIS  207 

leant  against  the  bar.  He  knew  he  must  lie 
consistently;  and  while  he  maintained  an  ap 
pearance  of  careless  indifference,  his  heart  was 
beating  and  pounding  furiously  and  irregularly, 
and  he  could  not  help  looking  hungrily  at  the 
three  men  by  the  stove.  They  were  the  pos 
sessors  of  life  —  his  life. 

"  But  where  in  hell  you  been  keeping  your 
self  all  this  time?  "  the  barkeeper  demanded. 

"  I  located  across  the  river,'7  he  answered. 
"  I've  got  a  mighty  big  stack  of  wood  chopped." 

The  barkeeper  nodded.  His  face  beamed 
with  understanding. 

"  I  heard  sounds  of  chopping  several  times," 
he  said.  "So  that  was  you,  eh?  Have  a 
drink?" 

Morganson  clutched  the  bar  tightly.  A 
drink !  He  could  have  thrown  his  arms  around 
the  man's  legs  and  kissed  his  feet.  He  tried 
vainly  to  utter  his  acceptance ;  but  the  barkeeper 
had  not  waited  and  was  already  passing  out  the 
bottle. 

"  But  what  did  you  do  for  grub?  "  the  latter 
asked.  "  You  don't  look  as  if  you  could  chop 


208     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

wood  to  keep  yourself  warm.  You  look  terri 
bly  bad,  friend.'7 

Morganson  yearned  towards  the  delayed  bot 
tle  and  gulped  dryly. 

"  I  did  the  chopping  before  the  scurvy  got 
bad,"  he  said.  "  Then  I  got  a  moose  right  at 
the  start.  IVe  been  living  high  all  right.  It's 
the  scurvy  that's  run  me  down." 

He  filled  the  glass,  and  added,  "  But  the 
spruce  tea's  knocking  it,  I  think." 

"  Have  another,"  the  barkeeper  said. 

The  action  of  the  two  glasses  of  whisky  on 
Morganson's  empty  stomach  and  weak  condition 
was  rapid.  The  next  he  knew  he  was  sitting 
by  the  stove  on  a  box,  and  it  seemed  as  though 
ages  had  passed.  A  tall,  broad-shouldered, 
black-whiskered  man  was  paying  for  drinks. 
Morganson's  swimming  eyes  saw  him  drawing 
a  greenback  from  a  fat  roll,  and  Morganson's 
swimming  eyes  cleared  on  the  instant.  They 
were  hundred-dollar  bills.  It  was  life!  His 
life !  He  felt  an  almost  irresistible  impulse  to 
snatch  the  money  and  dash  madly  out  into  the 
night. 


FINIS  209 

The  black-whiskered  man  and  one  of  his  com 
panions  arose. 

"  Come  on,  Oleson,"  the  former  said  to  the 
third  one  of  the  party,  a  fair-haired,  ruddy- 
faced  giant. 

Oleson  came  to  his  feet,  yawning  and  stretch 
ing. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  bed  so  soon  for?  " 
the  barkeeper  asked  plaintively.  "  It's  early 
yet." 

"  Got  to  make  Selkirk  to-morrow,"  said  he  of 
the  black  whiskers. 

"  On  Christmas  Day!  "  the  barkeeper  cried. 

"  The  better  the  day  the  better  the  deed,"  the 
other  laughed. 

As  the  three  men  passed  out  of  the  door  it 
came  dimly  to  Morganson  that  it  was  Christmas 
Eve.  That  was  the  date.  That  was  what  he 
had  come  to  Minto  for.  But  it  was  over 
shadowed  now  by  the  three  men  themselves,  and 
the  fat  roll  of  hundred-dollar  bills. 

The  door  slammed. 

"  That's  Jack  Thompson,"  the  barkeeper 
said.  "  Made  two  millions  on  Bonanza  and 


r 


210    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

Sulphur,  and  got  more  coming.  I'm  going  to 
bed.  Have  another  drink  first." 

Morganson  hesitated. 

"  A  Christmas  drink,"  the  other  urged. 
"  It's  all  right.  I'll  get  it  back  when  you  sell 
your  wood." 

Morganson  mastered  his  drunkenness  long 
enough  to  swallow  the  whisky,  say  good  night, 
and  get  out  on  the  trail.  It  was  moonlight, 
and  he  hobbled  along  through  the  bright,  silvery 
quiet,  with  a  vision  of  life  before  him  that  took 
the  form  of  a  roll  of  hundred-dollar  bills. 

He  awoke.  It  was  dark,  and  he  was  in  his 
blankets.  He  had  gone  to  bed  in  his  moccasins 
and  mittens,  with  the  flaps  of  his  cap  pulled 
down  over  his  ears.  He  got  up  as  quickly  as 
his  crippled  condition  would  permit,  and  built 
the  fire  and  boiled  some  water.  As  he  put  the 
spruce-twigs  into  the  teapot  he  noted  the  first 
glimmer  of  the  pale  morning  light.  He  caught 
up  his  rifle  and  hobbled  in  a  panic  out  to  the 
bank.  As  he  crouched  and  waited,  it  came  to 
him  that  he  had  forgotten  to  drink  his  spruce 
tea.  The  only  other  thought  in  his  mind  was 


FINIS  211 

the  possibility  of  John  Thompson  changing  his 
mind  and  not  travelling  Christmas  Day. 

Dawn  broke  and  merged  into  day.  It  was 
cold  and  clear.  Sixty  below  zero  was  Mor- 
ganson's  estimate  of  the  frost.  Not  a  breath 
stirred  the  chill  Arctic  quiet.  He  sat  up  sud 
denly,  his  muscular  tensity  increasing  the  hurt  of 
the  scurvy.  He  had  heard  the  far  sound  of  a 
man's  voice  and  the  faint  whining  of  dogs.  He 
began  beating  his  hands  back  and  forth  against 
his  sides.  It  was  a  serious  matter  to  bare  the 
trigger  hand  to  sixty  degrees  below  zero,  and 
against  that  time  he  needed  to  develop  all  the 
warmth  of  which  his  flesh  was  capable. 

They  came  into  view  around  the  outjutting 
clump  of  trees.  To  the  fore  was  the  third  man 
whose  name  he  had  not  learnt.  Then  came 
eight  dogs  drawing  the  sled.  At  the  front  of 
the  sled,  guiding  it  by  the  gee-pole,  walked  John 
Thompson.  The  rear  was  brought  up  by  Ole- 
son,  the  Swede.  He  was  certainly  a  fine  man, 
Morganson  thought,  as  he  looked  at  the  bulk  of 
him  in  his  squirrel-skin  parka.  The  men  and 
dogs  were  silhouetted  sharply  against  the  white 


212     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

of  the  landscape.  They  had  the  seeming  of  two 
dimension,  cardboard  figures  that  worked  me 
chanically. 

Morganson  rested  his  cocked  rifle  in  the  notch 
in  the  tree.  He  became  abruptly  aware  that  his 
fingers  were  cold,  and  discovered  that  his  right 
hand  was  bare.  He  did  not  know  that  he  had 
taken  off  the  mitten.  He  slipped  it  on  again 
hastily.  The  men  and  dogs  drew  closer,  and  he 
could  see  their  breaths  spouting  into  visibility  in 
the  cold  air.  When  the  first  man  was  fifty 
yards  away,  Morganson  slipped  the  mitten  from 
his  right  hand.  He  placed  the  first  finger  on 
the  trigger  and  aimed  low.  When  he  fired  the 
first  man  whirled  half  around  and  went  down  on 
the  trail. 

In  the  instant  of  surprise,  Morganson  pulled 
the  trigger  on  John  Thompson  —  too  low,  for 
the  latter  staggered  and  sat  down  suddenly  on 
the  sled.  Morganson  raised  his  aim  and  fired 
again.  John  Thompson  sank  down  backward 
along  the  top  of  the  loaded  sled. 

Morganson  turned  his  attention  to  Oleson. 
At  the  same  time  that  he  noted  the  latter  run- 


FINIS  213 

ning  away  towards  Minto  he  noted  that  the 
dogs,  coming  to  where  the  first  man's  body 
blocked  the  trail,  had  halted.  Morganson  fired 
at  the  fleeing  man  and  missed,  and  Oleson 
swerved.  He  continued  to  swerve  back  and 
forth,  while  Morganson  fired  twice  in  rapid  suc 
cession  and  missed  both  shots.  Morganson 
stopped  himself  just  as  he  was  pulling  the  trig 
ger  again.  He  had  fired  six  shots.  Only  one 
more  cartridge  remained,  and  it  was  in  the 
chamber.  It  was  imperative  that  he  should  not 
miss  his  last  shot. 

He  held  his  fire  and  desperately  studied  Ole- 
son's  flight.  The  giant  was  grotesquely  curving 
and  twisting  and  running  at  top  speed  along  the 
trail,  the  tail  of  his  parka  flapping  smartly  be 
hind.  Morganson  trained  his  rifle  on  the  man 
and  with  a  swaying  action  followed  his  erratic 
flight.  Morganson's  finger  was  getting  numb. 
He  could  scarcely  feel  the  trigger.  "  God  help 
me,"  he  breathed  a  prayer  aloud,  and  pulled 
the  trigger.  The  running  man  pitched  forward 
on  his  face,  rebounded  from  the  hard  trail,  and 
slid  along,  rolling  over  and  over.  He  threshed 


2i4     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

for  a  moment  with  his  arms  and  then  lay  quiet. 

Morganson  dropped  his  rifle  (worthless  now 
that  the  last  cartridge  was  gone)  and  slid  down 
the  bank  through  the  soft  snow.  Now  that  he 
had  sprung  the  trap,  concealment  of  his  lurking- 
place  was  no  longer  necessary.  He  hobbled 
along  the  trail  to  the  sled,  his  fingers  making  in 
voluntary  gripping  and  clutching  movements  in 
side  the  mittens. 

The  snarling  of  the  dogs  halted  him.  The 
leader,  a  heavy  dog,  half  Newfoundland  and 
half  Hudson  Bay,  stood  over  the  body  of  the 
man  that  lay  on  the  trail,  and  menaced  Morgan- 
son  with  bristling  hair  and  bared  fangs.  The 
other  seven  dogs  of  the  team  were  likewise 
bristling  and  snarling.  Morganson  approached 
tentatively,  and  the  team  surged  towards  him. 
He  stopped  again  and  talked  to  the  animals, 
threatening  and  cajoling  by  turns.  He  noticed 
the  face  of  the  man  under  the  leader's  feet,  and 
was  surprised  at  how  quickly  it  had  turned  white 
with  the  ebb  of  life  and  the  entrance  of  the  frost. 
John  Thompson  lay  back  along  the  top  of  the 
loaded  sled,  his  head  sunk  in  a  space  between 


FINIS  215 

two  sacks  and  his  chin  tilted  upwards,  so  that 
all  Morganson  could  see  was  the  black  beard 
pointing  skyward. 

Finding  it  impossible  to  face  the  dogs  Mor 
ganson  stepped  off  the  trail  into  the  deep  snow 
and  floundered  in  a  wide  circle  to  the  rear  of  the 
sled.  Under  the  initiative  of  the  leader,  the 
team  swung  around  in  its  tangled  harness. 
Because  of  his  crippled  condition,  Morganson 
could  move  only  slowly.  He  saw  the  animals 
circling  around  on  him  and  tried  to  retreat.  He 
almost  made  it,  but  the  big  leader,  with  a  savage 
lunge,  sank  its  teeth  into  the  calf  of  his  leg. 
The  flesh  was  slashed  and  torn,  but  Morganson 
managed  to  drag  himself  clear. 

He  cursed  the  brutes  fiercely,  but  could  not 
cow  them.  They  replied  with  neck-bristling 
and  snarling,  and  with  quick  lunges  against  their 
breastbands.  He  remembered  Oleson,  and 
turned  his  back  upon  them  and  went  along  the 
trail.  He  scarcely  took  notice  of  his  lacerated 
leg.  It  was  bleeding  freely;  the  main  artery 
had  been  torn,  but  he  did  not  know  it. 

Especially  remarkable  to  Morganson  was  the 


216     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

extreme  pallor  of  the  Swede,  who  the  preceding 
night  had  been  so  ruddy-faced.  Now  his  face 
was  like  white  marble.  What  with  his  fair  hair 
and  lashes  he  looked  like  a  carved  statue  rather 
than  something  that  had  been  a  man  a  few 
minutes  before.  Morganson  pulled  off  his  mit 
tens  and  searched  the  body.  There  was  no 
money-belt  around  the  waist  next  to  the  skin, 
nor  did  he  find  a  gold-sack.  In  a  breast  pocket 
he  lit  on  a  small  wallet.  With  fingers  that 
swiftly  went  numb  with  the  frost,  he  hurried 
through  the  contents  of  the  wallet.  There  were 
letters  with  foreign  stamps  and  postmarks  on 
them,  and  several  receipts  and  memorandum 
accounts,  and  a  letter  of  credit  for  eight  hundred 
dollars.  That  was  all.  There  was  no  money. 
He  made  a  movement  to  start  back  toward 
the  sled,  but  found  his  foot  rooted  to  the  trail. 
He  glanced  down  and  saw  that  he  stood  in  a 
fresh  deposit  of  frozen  red.  There  was  red 
ice  on  his  torn  pants  leg  and  on  the  moccasin 
beneath.  With  a  quick  effort  he  broke  the 
frozen  clutch  of  his  blood  and  hobbled  along 
the  trail  to  the  sled.  The  big  leader  that  had 


FINIS  217 

bitten  him  began  snarling  and  lunging,  and  was 
followed  in  this  conduct  by  the  whole  team. 

Morganson  wept  weakly  for  a  space,  and 
weakly  swayed  from  one  side  to  the  other. 
Then  he  brushed  away  the  frozen  tears  that 
gemmed  his  lashes.  It  was  a  joke.  Malicious 
chance  was  having  its  laugh  at  him.  Even  John 
Thompson,  with  his  heaven-aspiring  whiskers, 
was  laughing  at  him. 

He  prowled  around  the  sled  demented,  at 
times  weeping  and  pleading  with  the  brutes  for 
his  life  there  on  the  sled,  at  other  times  raging 
impotently  against  them.  Then  calmness  came 
upon  him.  He  had  been  making  a  fool  of  him 
self.  All  he  had  to  do  was  to  go  to  the  tent, 
get  the  axe,  and  return  and  brain  the  dogs. 
He'd  show  them. 

In  order  to  get  to  the  tent  he  had  to  go  wide 
of  the  sled  and  the  savage  animals.  He 
stepped  off  the  trail  into  the  soft  snow.  Then 
he  felt  suddenly  giddy  and  stood  still.  He  was 
afraid  to  go  on  for  fear  he  would  fall  down. 
He  stood  still  for  a  long  time,  balancing  himself 
on  his  crippled  legs  that  were  trembling  vio- 


218     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

lently  from  weakness.  He  looked  down  and 
saw  the  snow  reddening  at  his  feet.  The  blood 
flowed  freely  as  ever.  He  had  not  thought  the 
bite  was  so  severe.  He  controlled  his  giddiness 
and  stooped  to  examine  the  wound.  The  snow 
seemed  rushing  up  to  meet  him,  and  he  recoiled 
from  it  as  from  a  blow.  He  had  a  panic  fear 
that  he  might  fall  down,  and  after  a  struggle 
he  managed  to  stand  upright  again.  He  was 
afraid  of  that  snow  that  had  rushed  up  to  him. 
Then  the  white  glimmer  turned  black,  and 
the  next  he  knew  he  was  awakening  in  the  snow 
where  he  had  fallen.  He  was  no  longer  giddy. 
The  cobwebs  were  gone.  But  he  could  not  get 
up.  There  was  no  strength  in  his  limbs.  His 
body  seemed  lifeless.  By  a  desperate  effort  he 
managed  to  roll  over  on  his  side.  In  this  posi 
tion  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  sled  and  of  John 
Thompson's  black  beard  pointing  skyward. 
Also  he  saw  the  lead  dog  licking  the  face  of  the 
man  who  lay  on  the  trail.  Morganson  watched 
curiously.  The  dog  was  nervous  and  eager. 
Sometimes  it  uttered  short,  sharp  yelps,  as 
though  to  arouse  the  man,  and  surveyed  him 


FINIS  219 

with  cars  cocked  forward  and  wagging  tail. 
At  last  it  sat  down,  pointed  its  nose  upward,  and 
began  to  howl.  Soon  all  the  team  was  howling. 

Now  that  he  was  down,  Morganson  was  no 
longer  afraid.  He  had  a  vision  of  himself  be 
ing  found  dead  in  the  snow,  and  for  a  while  he 
wept  in  self-pity.  But  he  was  not  afraid.  The 
struggle  had  gone  out  of  him.  When  he  tried 
to  open  his  eyes  he  found  that  the  wet  tears  had 
frozen  them  shut.  He  did  not  try  to  brush  the 
ice  away.  It  did  not  matter.  He  had  not 
dreamed  death  was  so  easy.  He  was  even  angry 
that  he  had  struggled  and  suffered  through  so 
many  weary  weeks.  He  had  been  bullied  and 
cheated  by  the  fear  of  death.  Death  did  not 
hurt.  Every  torment  he  had  endured  had  been 
a  torment  of  life.  Life  had  defamed  death. 
It  was  a  cruel  thing. 

But  his  anger  passed.  The  lies  and  frauds 
of  life  were  of  no  consequence  now  that  he  was 
coming  to  his  own.  He  became  aware  of  drow 
siness,  and  felt  a  sweet  sleep  stealing  upon  him, 
balmy  with  promises  of  easement  and  rest.  He 
heard  faintly  the  howling  of  the  dogs,  and  had 


220    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

a  fleeting  thought  that  in  the  mastering  of  his 
flesh  the  frost  no  longer  bit.  Then  the  light 
and  the  thought  ceased  to  pulse  beneath  the  tear- 
gemmed  eyelids,  and  with  a  tired  sigh  of  com 
fort  he  sank  into  sleep. 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY 
I 


table  was  of  hand-hewn  spruce  boards, 
I_  and  the  men  who  played  whist  had  fre 
quent  difficulties  in  drawing  home  their  tricks 
across  the  uneven  surface.  Though  they  sat  in 
their  undershirts,  the  sweat  noduled  and  oozed 
on  their  faces  ;  yet  their  feet,  heavily  moccasined 
and  woollen-socked,  tingled  with  the  bite  of  the 
frost.  Such  was  the  difference  of  temperature 
in  the  small  cabin  between  the  floor  level  and  a 
yard  or  more  above  it.  The  sheet-iron  Yukon 
stove  roared  red-hot,  yet,  eight  feet  away,  on 
the  meat-shelf,  placed  low  and  beside  the  door, 
lay  chunks  of  solidly  frozen  moose  and  bacon. 
The  door,  a  third  of  the  way  up  from  the  bot 
tom,  was  a  thick  rime.  In  the  chinking  between 
the  logs  at  the  back  of  the  bunks  the  frost 
showed  white  and  glistening.  A  window  of 

221 


222     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

oiled  paper  furnished  light.  The  lower  portion 
of  the  paper,  on  the  inside,  was  coated  an  inch 
deep  with  the  frozen  moisture  of  the  men's 
breath. 

They  played  a  momentous  rubber  of  whist, 
for  the  pair  that  lost  was  to  dig  a  fishing  hole 
through  the  seven  feet  of  ice  and  snow  that 
covered  the  Yukon. 

"  It's  mighty  unusual,  a  cold  snap  like  this  in 
March,"  remarked  the  man  who  shuffled. 
"  What  would  you  call  it,  Bob  ?  " 

"  Oh,  fifty-five  or  sixty  below —  all  of  that. 
What  do  you  make  it,  Doc !  " 

Doc  turned  his  head  and  glanced  at  the  lower 
part  of  the  door  with  a  measuring  eye. 

"  Not  a  bit  worse  than  fifty.  If  anything, 
slightly  under  —  say  forty-nine.  See  the  ice  on 
the  door.  It's  just  about  the  fifty  mark,  but 
you'll  notice  the  upper  edge  is  ragged.  The 
time  she  went  seventy  the  ice  climbed  a  full  four 
inches  higher."  He  picked  up  his  hand,  and 
without  ceasing  from  sorting  called  "  Come  in," 
to  a  knock  on  the  door. 

The   man  who   entered  was   a   big,   broad- 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY      223 

shouldered  Swede,  though  his  nationality  was 
not  discernible  until  he  had  removed  his  ear- 
flapped  cap  and  thawed  away  the  ice  which  had 
formed  on  beard  and  moustache  and  which 
served  to  mask  his  face.  While  engaged  in 
this,  the  men  at  the  table  played  out  the  hand. 

"  I  hear  one  doctor  faller  stop  this  camp," 
the  Swede  said  inquiringly,  looking  anxiously 
from  face  to  face,  his  own  face  haggard  and 
drawn  from  severe  and  long  endured  pain.  "  I 
come  long  way.  North  fork  of  the  Whyo." 

"  I'm  the  doctor.     What's  the  matter?  " 

In  response,  the  man  held  up  his  left  hand, 
the  second  finger  of  which  was  monstrously 
swollen.  At  the  same  time  he  began  a  ram 
bling,  disjointed  history  of  the  coming  and 
growth  of  his  affliction. 

"  Let  me  look  at  it,"  the  doctor  broke  in  im 
patiently.  "  Lay  it  on  the  table.  There,  like 
that." 

Tenderly,  as  if  it  were  a  great  boil,  the  man 
obeyed. 

"  Humph,"  the  doctor  grumbled.  "  A  weep 
ing  sinew.  And  travelled  a  hundred  miles  to 


224    THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

have  it  fixed.  I'll  fix  it  in  a  jiffy.  You  watch 
me,  and  next  time  you  can  do  it  yourself." 

Without  warning,  squarely  and  at  right 
angles,  and  savagely,  the  doctor  brought  the 
edge  of  his  hand  down  on  the  swollen  crooked 
finger.  The  man  yelled  with  consternation  and 
agony.  It  was  more  like  the  cry  of  a  wild  beast, 
and  his  face  was  a  wild  beast's  as  he  was  about 
to  spring  on  the  man  who  had  perpetrated  the 
joke. 

"  That's  all  right,"  the  doctor  placated 
sharply  and  authoritatively.  "  How  do  you 
feel?  Better,  eh?  Of  course.  Next  time  you 
can  do  it  yourself —  Go  on  and  deal,  Stroth- 
ers.  I  think  we've  got  you." 

Slow  and  ox-like,  on  the  face  of  the  Swede 
dawned  relief  and  comprehension.  The  pang 
over,  the  finger  felt  better.  The  pain  was  gone. 
He  examined  the  finger  curiously,  with  wonder 
ing  eyes,  slowly  crooking  it  back  and  forth. 
He  reached  into  his  pocket  and  pulled  out  a 
gold-sack. 

"How  much?" 

The    doctor    shook    his    head    impatiently. 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     225 

"  Nothing.     I'm  not  practising  — -=     Your  play, 
Bob." 

The  Swede  moved  heavily  on  his  feet,  re- 
examined  the  finger,  then  turned  an  admiring 
gaze  on  the  doctor. 

"  You  are  good  man.     What  your  name  ?  " 

"  Linday,  Doctor  Linday,"  Strothers  an 
swered,  as  if  solicitous  to  save  his  opponent 
from  further  irritation. 

"  The  day's  half  done,"  Linday  said  to  the 
Swede,  at  the  end  of  the  hand,  while  he  shuffled. 
"  Better  rest  over  to-night.  It's  too  cold  for 
travelling.  There's  a  spare  bunk." 

He  was  a  slender  brunette  of  a  man,  lean- 
cheeked,  thin-lipped,  and  strong.  The  smooth- 
shaven  face  was  a  healthy  sallow.  All  his 
movements  were  quick  and  precise.  He  did 
not  fumble  his  cards.  The  eyes  were  black, 
direct,  and  piercing,  with  the  trick  of  seeming 
to  look  beneath  the  surfaces  of  things.  His 
hands,  slender,  fine  and  nervous,  appeared  made 
for  delicate  work,  and  to  the  most  casual  eye 
they  conveyed  an  impression  of  strength. 

Our  game,"  he  announced,  drawing  in  the 


u 


226    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

last  trick.  "  Now  for  the  rub  and  who  digs  the 
fishing  hole.'* 

A  knock  at  the  door  brought  a  quick  exclama 
tion  from  him. 

"  Seems  we  just  can't  finish  this  rubber,"  he 
complained,  as  the  door  opened.  "  What's  the 
matter  with  you?.99  • — this  last  to  the  stranger 
who  entered. 

The  newcomer  vainly  strove  to  move  his  ice 
bound  jaws  and  jowls.  That  he  had  been  on 
trail  for  long  hours  and  days  was  patent.  The 
skin  across  the  cheekbones  was  black  with  re 
peated  frost-bite.  From  nose  to  chin  was  a 
mass  of  solid  ice  perforated  by  the  hole  through 
which  he  breathed.  Through  this  he  had  also 
spat  tobacco  juice,  which  had  frozen,  as  it 
trickled,  into  an  amber-coloured  icicle,  pointed 
like  a  Van  Dyke  beard. 

He  shook  his  head  dumbly,  grinned  with  his 
eyes,  and  drew  near  to  the  stove  to  thaw  his 
mouth  to  speech.  He  assisted  the  process  with 
his  fingers,  clawing  off  fragments  of  melting 
ice  which  rattled  and  sizzled  on  the  stove. 

"  Nothing  the  matter  with  me,"  he  finally 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     227 

announced.  "  But  if  they's  a  doctor  in  the  out 
fit  he's  sure  needed.  They's  a  man  up  the  Little 
Peco  that's  had  a  ruction  with  a  panther,  an'  the 
way  he's  clawed  is  something  scand'lous." 

"  How  far  up?  "  Doctor  Linday  demanded. 

"  A  matter  of  a  hundred  miles." 

"  How  long  since?  " 

"  I've  ben  three  days  comin'  down." 

"Bad?" 

"  Shoulder  dislocated.  Some  ribs  broke  for 
sure.  Right  arm  broke.  An'  clawed  clean  to 
the  bone  most  all  over  but  the  face.  We  sewed 
up  two  or  three  bad  places  temporary,  and  tied 
arteries  with  twine." 

"  That  settles  it,"  Linday  sneered.  "  Where 
were  they?  " 

"  Stomach." 

"  He's  a  sight  by  now." 

"  Not  on  your  life.  Washed  clean  with  bug- 
killin'  dope  before  we  stitched.  Only  tempo 
rary  anyway.  Had  nothin'  but  linen  thread, 
but  washed  that,  too." 

"  He's  as  good  as  dead,"  was  Linday's  judg 
ment,  as  he  angrily  fingered  the  cards. 


228     THE  TURTLES  OF  T  ASM  AN 

"  Nope.  That  man  ain't  goin'  to  die.  He 
knows  I've  come  for  a  doctor,  an'  he'll  make  out 
to  live  until  you  get  there.  He  won't  let  him 
self  die.  I  know  him." 

"  Christian  Science  and  gangrene,  eh?  "  came 
the  sneer.  "  Well,  I'm  not  practising.  Nor 
can  I  see  myself  travelling  a  hundred  miles  at 
fifty  below  for  a  dead  man.'* 

"  I  can  see  you,  an'  for  a  man  a  long  ways 
from  dead." 

Linday  shook  his  head.  "  Sorry  you  had 
your  trip  for  nothing.  Better  stop  over  for  the 
night." 

"  Nope.     We'll  be  pullin'  out  in  ten  minutes." 

"  What  makes  you  so  cocksure?  "  Linday  de 
manded  testily. 

Then  it  was  that  Tom  Daw  made  the  speech 
of  his  life. 

u  Because  he's  just  goin'  on  livin'  till  you  get 
there,  if  it  takes  you  a  week  to  make  up  your 
mind.  Besides,  his  wife's  with  him,  not 
sheddin'  a  tear,  or  nothin',  an'  she's  helpin'  him 
live  till  you  come.  They  think  a  almighty  heap 
of  each  other,  an'  she's  got  a  will  like  hisn.  If 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY      229 

he  weakened,  she'd  just  put  her  immortal  soul 
into  hisn  an'  make  him  live.  Though  he  ain't 
weakenin'  none,  you  can  stack  on  that.  I'll 
stack  on  it.  I'll  lay  you  three  to  one,  in  ounces, 
he's  alive  when  you  get  there.  I  got  a  team  of 
dawgs  down  the  bank.  You  ought  to  allow  to 
start  in  ten  minutes,  an'  we  ought  to  make  it 
back  in  less'n  three  days  because  the  trail's 
broke.  I'm  goin'  down  to  the  dawgs  now,  an' 
I'll  look  for  you  in  ten  minutes." 

Tom  Daw  pulled  down  his  earflaps,  drew  on 
his  mittens,  and  passed  out. 

"  Damn  him !  "  Linday  cried,  glaring  vindic 
tively  at  the  closed  door. 


II 


night,  long  after  dark,  with  twenty- 
JL  five  miles  behind  them,  Linday  and  Tom 
Daw  went  into  camp.  It  was  a  simple  but  ade 
quate  affair:  a  fire  built  in  the  snow;  alongside, 
their  sleeping-furs  spread  in  a  single  bed  on  a 
mat  of  spruce  boughs;  behind  the  bed  an  oblong 
of  canvas  stretched  to  refract  the  heat.  Daw 
fed  the  dogs  and  chopped  ice  and  firewood. 
Linday'  s  cheeks  burned  with  frost-bite  as  he 
squatted  over  the  cooking.  They  ate  heavily, 
smoked  a  pipe  and  talked  while  they  dried  their 
moccasins  before  the  fire,  and  turned  in  to  sleep 
the  dead  sleep  of  fatigue  and  health. 

Morning  found  the  unprecedented  cold  snap 
broken.  Linday  estimated  the  temperature  at 
fifteen  below  and  rising.  Daw  was  worried. 
That  day  would  see  them  in  the  canyon,  he  ex 
plained,  and  if  the  spring  thaw  set  in  the  canyon 

230 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     231 

would  run  open  water.  The  walls  of  the  can 
yon  were  hundreds  to  thousands  of  feet  high. 
They  could  be  climbed,  but  the  going  would  be 
slow. 

Camped  well  in  the  dark  and  forbidding 
gorge,  over  their  pipe  that  evening  they  com 
plained  of  the  heat,  and  both  agreed  that  the 
thermometer  must  be  above  zero  —  the  first 
time  in  six  months. 

"  Nobody  ever  heard  tell  of  a  panther  this 
far  north,"  Daw  was  saying.  "  Rocky  called 
it  a  cougar.  But  I  shot  a-many  of  'em  down  in 
Curry  County,  Oregon,  where  I  come  from,  an' 
we  called  'em  panther.  Anyway,  it  was  a  big 
ger  cat  than  ever  I  seen.  It  was  sure  a  monster 
cat.  Now  how'd  it  ever  stray  to  such  out  of  the 
way  huntin'  range?  —  that's  the  question." 

Linday  made  no  comment.  He  was  nodding. 
Propped  on  sticks,  his  moccasins  steamed  un 
heeded  and  unturned.  The  dogs,  curled  in 
furry  balls,  slept  in  the  snow.  The  crackle  of 
an  ember  accentuated  the  profound  of  silence 
that  reigned.  He  awoke  with  a  start  and  gazed 
at  Daw,  who  nodded  and  returned  the  gaze. 


232     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Both  listened.  From  far  off  came  a  vague  dis 
turbance  that  increased  to  a  vast  and  sombre 
roaring.  As  it  neared,  ever-increasing,  riding 
the  mountain  tops  as  well  as  the  canyon  depths, 
bowing  the  forest  before  it,  bending  the  meagre, 
crevice-rooted  pines  on  the  walls  of  the  gorge, 
they  knew  it  for  what  it  was.  A  wind,  strong 
and  warm,  a  balmy  gale,  drove  past  them, 
flinging  a  rocket-shower  of  sparks  from  the  fire. 
The  dogs,  aroused,  sat  on  their  haunches,  bleak 
noses  pointed  upward,  and  raised  the  long  wolf 
howl. 

"  It's  the  Chinook,"  Daw  said. 

"  It  means  the  river  trail,  I  suppose?  " 

"  Sure  thing.  And  ten  miles  of  it  is  easier 
than  one  over  the  tops."  Daw  surveyed  Lin- 
day  for  a  long,  considering  minute.  '*  We've 
just  had  fifteen  hours  of  trail,"  he  shouted 
above  the  wind,  tentatively,  and  again  waited. 
"  Doc,"  he  said  finally,  "  are  you  game?  " 

For  answer,  Linday  knocked  out  his  pipe  and 
began  to  pull  on  his  damp  moccasins.  Between 
them,  and  in  few  minutes,  bending  to  the  force 
of  the  wind,  the  dogs  were  harnessed,  camp 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     233 

broken,  and  the  cooking  outfit  and  unused  sleep 
ing  furs  lashed  on  the  sled.  Then,  through  the 
darkness,  for  a  night  of  travel,  they  churned 
out  on  the  trail  Daw  had  broken  nearly  a  week 
before.  And  all  through  the  night  the  Chinook 
roared  and  they  urged  the  weary  dogs  and 
spurred  their  own  jaded  muscles.  Twelve 
hours  of  it  they  made,  and  stopped  for  break 
fast  after  twenty-seven  hours  on  trail. 

"  An  hour's  sleep,"  said  Daw,  when  they 
had  wolfed  pounds  of  straight  moose-meat  fried 
with  bacon. 

Two  hours  he  let  his  companion  sleep,  afraid 
himself  to  close  his  eyes.  He  occupied  him 
self  with  making  marks  upon  the  soft-surfaced, 
shrinking  snow.  Visibly  it  shrank.  In  two 
hours  the  snow  level  sank  three  inches.  From 
every  side,  faintly  heard  and  near,  under  the 
voice  of  the  spring  wind,  came  the  trickling  of 
hidden  waters.  The  Little  Peco,  strengthened 
by  the  multitudinous  streamlets,  rose  against  the 
manacles  of  winter,  riving  the  ice  with  crash- 
ings  and  snappings. 

Daw    touched    Linday    on    the    shoulder; 


234    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

touched  him  again ;  shook,  and  shook  violently. 

"  Doc,"  he  murmured  admiringly.  "  You 
can  sure  go  some." 

The  weary  black  eyes,  under  heavy  lids,  ac 
knowledged  the  compliment. 

"  But  that  ain't  the  question.  Rocky  is 
clawed  something  scand'lous.  As  I  said  be 
fore,  I  helped  sew  up  his  in'ards.  Doc  .  .  ." 
He  shook  the  man,  whose  eyes  had  again  closed. 
"  I  say,  Doc !  The  question  is :  can  you  go 
some  more?  —  hear  me?  I  say,  can  you  go 
some  more?  " 

The  weary  dogs  snapped  and  whimpered 
when  kicked  from  their  sleep.  The  going  was 
slow,  not  more  than  two  miles  an  hour,  and  the 
animals  took  every  opportunity  to  lie  down  in 
the  wet  snow. 

"  Twenty  miles  of  it,  and  we'll  be  through  the 
gorge,"  Daw  encouraged.  "  After  that  the  ice 
can  go  to  blazes,  for  we  can  take  to  the  bank, 
and  it's  only  ten  more  miles  to  camp.  Why, 
Doc,  we're  almost  there.  And  when  you  get 
Rocky  fixed  up,  you  can  come  down  in  a  canoe 
in  one  day." 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     235 

But  the  ice  grew  more  uneasy  under  them, 
breaking  loose  from  the  shore-line  and  rising 
steadily  inch  by  inch.  In  places  where  it  still 
held  to  the  shore,  the  water  overran  and  they 
waded  and  slushed  across.  The  Little  Peco 
growled  and  muttered.  Cracks  and  fissures 
were  forming  everywhere  as  they  battled  on  for 
the  miles  that  each  one  of  which  meant  ten 
along  the  tops. 

"  Get  on  the  sled,  Doc,  an'  take  a  snooze," 
Daw  invited. 

The  glare  from  the  black  eyes  prevented  him 
from  repeating  the  suggestion. 

As  early  as  midday  they  received  definite 
warning  of  the  beginning  of  the  end.  Cakes  of 
ice,  borne  downward  in  the  rapid  current,  began 
to  thunder  beneath  the  ice  on  which  they  stood. 
The  dogs  whimpered  anxiously  and  yearned  for 
the  bank. 

"  That  means  open  water  above,"  Daw  ex 
plained.  "  Pretty  soon  she'll  jam  somewheres, 
an'  the  river'll  raise  a  hundred  feet  in  a  hundred 
minutes.  It's  us  for  the  tops  if  we  can  find  a 
way  to  climb  out.  Come  on!  Hit  her  up! 


236     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

An'  just  to  think,  the  Yukon'll  stick  solid  for 
weeks." 

Unusually  narrow  at  this  point,  the  great 
walls  of  the  canyon  were  too  precipitous  to 
scale.  Daw  and  Linday  had  to  keep  on;  and 
they  kept  on  till  the  disaster  happened.  With 
a  loud  explosion,  the  ice  broke  asunder  midway 
under  the  team.  The  two  animals  in  the 
middle  of  the  string  went  into  the  fissure,  and 
the  grip  of  the  current  on  their  bodies  dragged 
the  lead-dog  backward  and  in.  Swept  down 
stream  under  the  ice,  these  three  bodies  began 
to  drag  to  the  edge  the  two  whining  dogs  that 
remained.  The  men  held  back  frantically  on 
the  sled,  but  were  slowly  drawn  along  with  it. 
It  was  all  over  in  the  space  of  seconds.  Daw 
slashed  the  wheel-dog's  traces  with  his  sheath- 
knife,  and  the  animal  whipped  over  the  ice-edge 
and  was  gone.  The  ice  on  which  they  stood, 
broke  into  a  large  and  pivoting  cake  that  ground 
and  splintered  against  the  shore  ice  and  rocks. 
Between  them  they  got  the  sled  ashore  and  up 
into  a  crevice  in  time  to  see  the  ice-cake  up- 
edge,  sink,  and  down-shelve  from  view. 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     237 

Meat  and  sleeping  furs  were  made  into  packs, 
and  the  sled  was  abandoned.  Linday  resented 
Daw's  taking  the  heavier  pack,  but  Daw  had  his 
will. 

"  You  got  to  work  as  soon  as  you  get  there. 
Come  on." 

It  was  one  in  the  afternoon  when  they  started 
to  climb.  At  eight  that  evening  they  cleared 
the  rim  and  for  half  an  hour  lay  where  they  had 
fallen.  Then  came  the  fire,  a  pot  of  coffee,  and 
an  enormous  feed  of  moosemeat.  But  first 
Linday  hefted  the  two  packs,  and  found  his  own 
lighter  by  half. 

"  You're  an  iron  man,  Daw,"  he  admired. 

"  Who  ?  Me  ?  Oh,  pshaw !  You  ought  to 
see  Rocky.  He's  made  out  of  platinum,  an' 
armour  plate,  an'  pure  gold,  an'  all  strong 
things.  I'm  mountaineer,  but  he  plumb  beats 
me  out.  Down  in  Curry  County  I  used  to 

'most  kill  the  boys  when  we  run  bear.     So  when 

<  • 

I  hooks  up  with  Rocky  on  our  first  hunt  I  had 
a  mean  idea  to  show  'm  a  few.  I  let  out  the 
links  good  an'  generous,  'most  nigh  keepin'  up 
with  the  dawgs,  an'  along  comes  Rocky  a- 


238    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

treadin'  on  my  heels.  I  knowed  he  couldn't  last 
that  way,  and  I  just  laid  down  an'  did  my 
dangdest.  An'  there  he  was,  at  the  end  of  an 
other  hour,  a-treadin'  steady  an'  regular  on  my 
heels.  I  was  some  huffed.  4  Mebbe  you'd  like 
to  come  to  the  front  an'  show  me  how  to  travel,' 
I  says.  'Sure,'  says  he.  An'  he  done  it!  I 
stayed  with  'm,  but  let  me  tell  you  I  was  plumb 
tuckered  by  the  time  the  bear  tree'd. 

"  They  ain't  no  stoppin'  that  man.  He  ain't 
afraid  of  nothin'.  Last  fall,  before  the  freeze- 
up,  him  an'  me  was  headin'  for  camp  about  twi 
light.  I  was  clean  shot  out  —  ptarmigan  — 
an'  he  had  one  cartridge  left.  An'  the  dawgs 
tree'd  a  she  grizzly.  Small  one.  Only 
weighed  about  three  hundred,  but  you  know 
what  grizzlies  is.  *  Don't  do  it,'  says  I, 
when  he  ups  with  his  rifle.  *  You  only  got 
that  one  shot,  an'  it's  too  dark  to  see  the 
sights.' 

"  '  Climb  a  tree,'  says  he.  I  didn't  climb  no 
tree,  but  when  that  bear  come  down  a-cussin' 
among  the  dawgs,  an'  only  creased,  I  want  to 
tell  you  I  was  sure  hankerin'  for  a  tree.  It  was 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY      239 

some  ruction.  Then  things  come  on  real  bad. 
The  bear  slid  down  a  hollow  against  a  big  log. 
Downside,  that  log  was  four  feet  up  an'  down. 
Dawgs  couldn't  get  at  bear  that  way.  Upside 
was  steep  gravel,  an'  the  dawgs'd  just  natu 
rally  slide  down  into  the  bear.  They  was  no 
jumpin'  back,  an'  the  bear  was  a-manglin'  'em 
fast  as  they  come.  All  underbrush,  gettin' 
pretty  dark,  no  cartridges,  nothin'. 

"  What's  Rocky  up  an'  do?  He  goes  down 
side  of  log,  reaches  over  with  his  knife,  an'  be 
gins  slashin'.  But  he  can  only  reach  bear's 
rump,  an'  dawgs  bein'  ruined  fast,  one-two-three 
time.  Rocky  gets  desperate.  He  don't  like  to 
lose  his  dawgs.  He  jumps  on  top  log,  grabs 
bear  by  the  slack  of  the  rump,  an'  heaves  over 
back'ard  right  over  top  of  that  log.  Down 
they  go,  kit  an'  kaboodle,  twenty  feet,  bear, 
dawgs,  an'  Rocky,  slidin',  cussin',  an'  scratchin', 
ker-plump  into  ten  feet  of  water  in  the  bed  of 
stream.  They  all  swum  out  different  ways. 
Nope,  he  didn't  get  the  bear,  but  he  saved  the 
dawgs.  That's  Rocky.  They's  no  stoppin' 
him  when  his  mind's  set." 


24o     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

It  was  at  the  next  camp  that  Linday  heard 
how  Rocky  had  come  to  be  injured. 

"  I'd  ben  up  the  draw,  about  a  mile  from  the 
cabin,  lookin'  for  a  piece  of  birch  likely  enough 
for  an  axe-handle.  Comin'  back  I  heard  the 
darndest  goings-on  where  we  had  a  bear  trap 
set.  Some  trapper  had  left  the  trap  in  an  old 
cache  an'  Rocky  'd  fixed  it  up.  But  the  goings- 
on.  It  was  Rocky  an'  his  brother  Harry. 
First  I'd  hear  one  yell  and  laugh,  an'  then  the 
other,  like  it  was  some  game.  An'  what  do  you 
think  the  fool  game  was  ?  I've  saw  some  pretty 
nervy  cusses  down  in  Curry  County,  but  they 
beat  all.  They'd  got  a  whoppin'  big  panther 
in  the  trap  an'  was  takin'  turns  rappin'  it  on  the 
nose  with  a  light  stick.  But  that  wa'n't  the 
point.  I  just  come  out  of  the  brush  in  time  to 
see  Harry  rap  it.  Then  he  chops  six  inches  off 
the  stick  an'  passes  it  to  Rocky.  You  see,  that 
stick  was  growin'  shorter  all  the  time.  It  ain't 
as  easy  as  you  think.  The  panther  'd  slack 
back  an'  hunch  down  an'  spit,  an'  it  was  mighty 
lively  in  duckin'  the  stick.  An'  you  never 
knowed  when  it'd  jump.  It  was  caught  by  the 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     241 

hind  leg,  which  was  curious,  too,  an'  it  had 
some  slack  I'm  tellin'  you. 

"  It  was  just  a  game  of  dare  they  was  playin', 
an'  the  stick  gettin'  shorter  an1  shorter  an'  the 
panther  madder  'n  madder.  Bimeby  they 
wa'n't  no  stick  left  —  only  a  nubbin,  about  four 
inches  long,  an'  it  was  Rocky's  turn.  '  Better 
quit  now,'  says  Harry.  'What  for?'  says 
Rocky.  *  Because  if  you  rap  him  again  they 
won't  be  no  stick  left  for  me,'  Harry  answers. 
*  Then  you'll  quit  an'  I  win,'  says  Rocky  with  a 
laugh,  an'  goes  to  it. 

"  An'  I  don't  want  to  see  anything  like  it 
again.  That  cat  'd  bunched  back  an'  down  till 
it  had  all  of  six  feet  slack  in  its  body.  An' 
Rocky's  stick  four  inches  long.  The  cat  got 
him.  You  couldn't  see  one  from  t'other.  No 
chance  to  shoot.  It  was  Harry,  in  the  end,  that 
got  his  knife  into  the  panther's  jugular." 

"  If  I'd  known  how  he  got  it  I'd  never  have 
come,"  was  Linday's  comment. 

Daw  nodded  concurrence. 

"  That's  what  she  said.  She  told  me  sure 
not  to  whisper  how  it  happened." 


242     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"Is  he  crazy ?"  Linday  demanded  in  his 
wrath. 

"  They're  all  crazy.  Him  an'  his  brother 
are  all  the  time  devilin'  each  other  to  torn-fool 
things.  I  seen  them  swim  the  riffle  last  fall,  bad 
water  an'  mush-ice  runnin' —  on  a  dare.  They 
ain't  nothin'  they  won't  tackle.  An'  she's  'most 
as  bad.  Not  afraid  some  herself.  She'll  do 
anything  Rocky'll  let  her.  But  he's  almighty 
careful  with  her.  Treats  her  like  a  queen. 
No  camp-work  or  such  for  her.  That's  why 
another  man  an'  me  are  hired  on  good  wages. 
They've  got  slathers  of  money  an'  they're  sure 
dippy  on  each  other.  4  Looks  like  good 
huntinY  says  Rocky,  when  they  struck  that  sec 
tion  last  fall.  '  Let's  make  a  camp  then,'  says 
Harry.  An'  me  all  the  time  thinkin'  they  was 
lookin'  for  gold.  Ain't  ben  a  prospect  pan 
washed  the  whole  winter." 

Linday's  anger  mounted.  "  I  haven't  any 
patience  with  fools.  For  two  cents  I'd  turn 
back." 

"  No  you  wouldn't,"  Daw  assured  him  con 
fidently.  "  They  ain't  enough  grub  to  turn 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     243 

back,  an'  we'll  be  there  to-morrow.  Just  got 
to  cross  that  last  divide  an'  drop  down  to  the 
cabin.  An'  they's  a  better  reason.  You're  too 
far  from  home,  an'  I  just  naturally  wouldn't  let 
you  turn  back." 

Exhausted  as  Linday  was,  the  flash  in  his 
black  eyes  warned  Daw  that  he  had  overreached 
himself.  His  hand  went  out. 

"  My  mistake,  Doc.  Forget  it.  I  reckon 
I'm  gettin'  some  cranky  what  of  losin'  them 
dawgs." 


Ill 

NOT  one  day,  but  three  days  later,  the  two 
men,  after  being  snowed  in  on  the  sum 
mit  by  a  spring  blizzard,  staggered  up  to  a  cabin 
that  stood  in  a  fat  bottom  beside  the  roaring 
Little  Peco.  Coming  in  from  the  bright  sun 
shine  to  the  dark  cabin,  Linday  observed  little 
of  its  occupants.  He  was  no  more  than  aware 
of  two  men  and  a  woman.  But  he  was  not 
interested  in  them.  He  went  directly  to  the 
bunk  where  lay  the  injured  man.  The  latter 
was  lying  on  his  back,  with  eyes  closed,  and 
Linday  noted  the  slender  stencilling  of  the  brows 
and  the  kinky  silkiness  of  the  brown  hair. 
Thin  and  wan,  the  face  seemed  too  small  for  the 
muscular  neck,  yet  the  delicate  features,  despite 
their  waste,  were  firmly  moulded. 

"What  dressings  have   you  been  using?" 
Linday  asked  of  the  woman. 

244 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     245 

"  Corrosive  sublimate,  regular  solution," 
came  the  answer. 

He  glanced  quickly  at  her,  shot  an  even 
quicker  glance  at  the  face  of  the  injured 
man,  and  stood  erect.  She  breathed  sharply, 
abruptly  biting  off  the  respiration  with  an  effort 
of  will.  Linday  turned  to  the  men. 

"  You  clear  out  —  chop  wood  or  something. 
Clear  out." 

One  of  them  demurred. 

'  This  is  a  serious  case,"  Linday  went  on. 
"  I  want  to  talk  to  his  wife." 

"  I'm  his  brother,"  said  the  other. 

To  him  the  woman  looked,  praying  him  with 
her  eyes.  He  nodded  reluctantly  and  turned 
toward  the  door. 

"Me,  too?"  Daw  queried  from  the  bench 
where  he  had  flung  himself  down. 

"  You,  too." 

Linday  busied  himself  with  a  superficial  ex 
amination  of  the  patient  while  the  cabin  was 
emptying. 

"So?"  he  said.  "So  that's  your  Rex 
Strang." 


246     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

She  dropped  her  eyes  to  the  man  in  the  bunk 
as  if  to  reassure  herself  of  his  identity,  and  then 
in  silence  returned  Linday's  gaze. 

"  Why  don't  you  speak?  " 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "  What  is  the 
use?  You  know  it  is  Rex  Strang." 

'  Thank  you.  Though  I  might  remind  you 
that  it  is  the  first  time  I  have  ever  seen  him. 
Sit  down."  He  waved  her  to  a  stool,  himself 
taking  the  bench.  "  I'm  really  about  all  in, 
you  know.  There's  no  turnpike  from  the 
Yukon  here." 

He  drew  a  penknife  and  began  extracting  a 
thorn  from  his  thumb. 

'*  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  she  asked, 
after  a  minute's  wait. 

"  Eat  and  rest  up  before  I  start  back." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  .  .  ." 
She  inclined  her  head  toward  the  unconscious 
man. 

11  Nothing." 

She  went  over  to  the  bunk  and  rested  her 
fingers  lightly  on  the  tight-curled  hair. 

"  You   mean   you   will  kill   him,"    she   said 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     247 

slowly.  "  Kill  him  by  doing  nothing,  for  you 
can  save  him  if  you  will." 

"  Take  it  that  way."  He  considered  a 
moment,  and  stated  his  thought  with  a  harsh 
little  laugh.  "  From  time  immemorial  in  this 
weary  old  world  it  has  been  a  not  uncommon 
custom  so  to  dispose  of  wife-stealers." 

"  You  are  unfair,  Grant,"  she  answered 
gently.  "  You  forget  that  I  was  willing  and 
that  I  desired.  I  was  a  free  agent.  Rex  never 
stole  me.  It  was  you  who  lost  me.  I  went 
with  him,  willing  and  eager,  with  song  on  my 
lips.  As  well  accuse  me  of  stealing  him.  We 
went  together." 

"  A  good  way  of  looking  at  it,"  Linday  con 
ceded.  "  I  see  you  are  as  keen  a  thinker  as 
ever,  Madge.  That  must  have  bothered  him." 

"  A  keen  thinker  can  be  a  good  lover  — " 

"  And  not  so  foolish,"  he  broke  in. 

"  Then  you  admit  the  wisdom  of  my  course  ?  " 

He  threw  up  his  hands.  "  That's  the  devil 
of  it,  talking  with  clever  women.  A  man  al 
ways  forgets  and  traps  himself.  I  wouldn't 
wonder  if  you  won  him  with  a  syllogism." 


248     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Her  reply  was  the  hint  of  a  smile  in  her 
straight-looking  blue  eyes  and  a  seeming  ema 
nation  of  sex  pride  from  all  the  physical  being 
of  her. 

u  No,  I  take  that  back,  Madge.  If  you'd 
been  a  numbskull  you'd  have  won  him,  or  any 
one  else,  on  your  looks,  and  form,  and  carriage. 
I  ought  to  know.  I've  been  through  that  par 
ticular  mill,  and,  the  devil  take  me,  I'm  not 
through  it  yet." 

His  speech  was  quick  and  nervous  and  irri 
table,  as  it  always  was,  and,  as  she  knew,  it  was 
always  candid.  She  took  her  cue  from  his  last 
remark. 

"  Do  you  remember  Lake  Geneva?" 

"  I  ought  to.     I  was  rather  absurdly  happy." 

She  nodded,  and  her  eyes  were  luminous. 
"  There  is  such  a  thing  as  old  sake.  Won't 
you,  Grant,  please,  just  remember  back  ...  a 
little  .  .  .  oh,  so  little  ...  of  what  we  were 
to  each  other  .  .  .  then?" 

"  Now  you're  taking  advantage,"  he  smiled, 
and  returned  to  the  attack  on  his  thumb.  He 
drew  the  thorn  out,  inspected  it  critically,  then 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     249 

concluded.  "  No,  thank  you.  I'm  not  playing 
the  Good  Samaritan." 

"  Yet  you  made  this  hard  journey  for  an  un 
known  man,n  she  urged. 

His  impatience  was  sharply  manifest.  "  Do 
you  fancy  I'd  have  moved  a  step  had  I  known 
he  was  my  wife's  lover?  " 

"  But  you  are  here  .  .  .  now.  And  there 
he  lies.  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?" 

"  Nothing.  Why  should  I  ?  I  am  not  at 
the  man's  service.  He  pilfered  me." 

She  was  about  to  speak,  when  a  knock  came 
on  the  door. 

"  Get  out!  "  he  shouted. 

"  If  you  want  any  assistance  — " 

"  Get  out !  Get  a  bucket  of  water !  Set  it 
down  outside !  " 

"  You  are  going  to  .  .  .?"  she  began  trem 
ulously. 

"  Wash  up." 

She  recoiled  from  the  brutality,  and  her  lips 
tightened. 

"  Listen,  Grant,"  she  said  steadily.  "  I  shall 
tell  his  brother.  I  know  the  Strang  breed.  If 


250    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

you  can  forget  old  sake,  so  can  I.  If  you  don't 
do  something,  he'll  kill  you.  Why,  even  Tom 
Daw  would  if  I  asked." 

*  You  should  know  me  better  than  to 
threaten,"  he  reproved  gravely,  then  added, 
with  a  sneer:  "Besides,  I  don't  see  how  kill 
ing  me  will  help  your  Rex  Strang." 

She  gave  a  low  gasp,  closed  her  lips  tightly, 
and  watched  his  quick  eyes  take  note  of  the 
trembling  that  had  beset  her. 

"  It's  not  hysteria,  Grant,"  she  cried  hastily 
and  anxiously,  with  clicking  teeth.  "  You  never 
saw  me  with  hysteria.  I've  never  had  it.  I 
don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I'll  control  it.  I  am 
merely  beside  myself.  It's  partly  anger ; — 
with  you.  And  it's  apprehension  and  fear.  I 
don't  want  to  lose  him.  I  do  love  him,  Grant. 
He  is  my  king,  my  lover.  And  I  have  sat  here 
beside  him  so  many  dreadful  days  now.  Oh, 
Grant,  please,  please." 

"  Just  nerves,"  he  commented  drily.  "  Stay 
with  it.  You  can  best  it.  If  you  were  a  man 
I'd  say  take  a  smoke." 

She  went  unsteadily  back  to  the  stool,  where 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     251 

she  watched  him  and  fought  for  control. 
From  the  rough  fireplace  came  the  singing  of 
a  cricket.  Outside  two  wolf-dogs  bickered. 
The  injured  man's  chest  rose  and  fell  perceptibly 
under  the  fur  robes.  She  saw  a  smile,  not  al 
together  pleasant,  form  on  Linday's  lips. 

"How  much  do  you  love  him?"  he  asked. 

Her  breast  filled  and  rose,  and  her  eyes  shone 
with  a  light  unashamed  and  proud.  He 
nodded  in  token  that  he  was  answered. 

"  Do  you  mind  if  I  take  a  little  time  ?  "  He 
stopped,  casting  about  for  the  way  to  begin. 
"  I  remember  reading  a  story  —  Herbert  Shaw 
wrote  it,  I  think.  I  want  to  tell  you  about  it. 
There  was  a  woman,  young  and  beautiful;  a 
man  magnificent,  a  lover  of  beauty  and  a 
wanderer.  I  don't  know  how  much  like  your 
Rex  Strang  he  was,  but  I  fancy  a  sort  of  re 
semblance.  Well,  this  man  was  a  painter,  a 
bohemian,  a  vagabond.  He  kissed  —  oh,  sev 
eral  times  and  for  several  weeks  —  and  rode 
away.  She  possessed  for  him  what  I  thought 
you  possessed  for  me  ...  at  Lake  Geneva. 
In  ten  years  she  wept  the  beauty  out  of  her  face. 


252     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Some  women  turn  yellow,  you  know,  when  grief 
upsets  their  natural  juices. 

"  Now  it  happened  that  the  man  went  blind, 
and  ten  years  afterward,  led  as  a  child  by  the 
hand,  he  stumbled  back  to  her.  There  was 
nothing  left.  He  could  no  longer  paint.  And 
she  was  very  happy,  and  glad  he  could  not  see 
her  face.  Remember,  he  worshipped  beauty. 
And  he  continued  to  hold  her  in  his  arms  and 
believe  in  her  beauty.  The  memory  of  it  was 
vivid  in  him.  He  never  ceased  to  talk  about  it, 
and  to  lament  that  he  could  not  behold  it. 

"  One  day  he  told  her  of  five  great  pictures 
he  wished  to  paint.  If  only  his  sight  could  be 
restored  to  paint  them,  he  could  write  finis  and 
be  content.  And  then,  no  matter  how,  there 
came  into  her  hands  an  elixir.  Anointed  on 
his  eyes,  the  sight  would  surely  and  fully  re 


turn." 


Linday  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  .You  see  her  struggle.  With  sight,  he  could 
paint  his  five  pictures.  Also,  he  would  leave 
her.  Beauty  was  his  religion.  It  was  impos 
sible  that  he  could  abide  her  ruined  face.  Five 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     253 

days  she  struggled.  Then  she  anointed  his 
eyes." 

Linday  broke  off  and  searched  her  with  his 
eyes,  the  high  lights  focused  sharply  in  the  bril 
liant  black. 

"  The  question  is,  do  you  love  Rex  Strang  as 
much  as  that?  " 

"  And  if  I  do?  "  she  countered. 

"Do  you?" 

"  Yes." 

"  You  can  sacrifice  ?     You  can  give  him  up  ?  " 

Slow  and  reluctant  was  her  "  Yes." 

"  And  you  will  come  with  me?  " 

"  Yes."  This  time  her  voice  was  a  whisper. 
"  When  he  is  well  —  yes." 

"  You  understand.  It  must  be  Lake  Geneva 
over  again.  You  will  be  my  wife." 

She  seemed  to  shrink  and  droop,  but  her  head 
nodded. 

"  Very  well."  He  stood  up  briskly,  went  to 
his  pack,  and  began  unstrapping.  "  I  shall 
need  help.  Bring  his  brother  in.  Bring  them 
all  in.  Boiling  water  —  let  there  be  lots  of  it. 
I've  brought  bandages,  but  let  me  see  what  you 


254    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

have  in  that  line. —  Here,  Daw,  build  up  that 
fire  and  start  boiling  all  the  water  you  can. 
—  Here  you,"  to  the  other  man,  "  get  that 
table  out  and  under  the  window  there.  Clean 
it;  scrub  it;  scald  it.  Clean,  man,  clean,  as  you 
never  cleaned  a  thing  before.  You,  Mrs. 
Strang,  will  be  my  helper.  No  sheets,  I  sup 
pose.  Well,  we'll  manage  somehow. —  You're 
his  brother,  sir.  I'll  give  the  anaesthetic,  but 
you  must  keep  it  going  afterward.  Now  listen, 
while  I  instruct  you.  In  the  first  place  —  but 
before  that,  can  you  take  a  pulse?  .  .  ." 


IV 

NOTED  for  his  daring  and  success  as  a 
surgeon,  through  the  days  and  weeks 
that  followed  Linday  exceeded  himself  in  dar 
ing  and  success.  Never,  because  of  the  fright 
ful  mangling  and  breakage,  and  because  of  the 
long  delay,  had  he  encountered  so  terrible  a 
case.  But  he  had  never  had  a  healthier  speci 
men  of  human  wreck  to  work  upon.  Even  then 
he  would  have  failed,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
pati'ent's  catlike  vitality  and  almost  uncanny 
physical  and  mental  grip  on  life. 

There  were  days  of  high  temperature  and 
delirium;  days  of  heart-sinking  when  Strang's 
pulse  was  barely  perceptible ;  days  when  he  lay 
conscious,  eyes  weary  and  drawn,  the  sweat  of 
pain  on  his  face.  Linday  was  indefatigable, 
cruelly  efficient,  audacious  and  fortunate,  daring 
hazard  after  hazard  and  winning.  He  was  not 
content  to  make  the  man  live.  He  devoted 
255 


256     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

himself  to  the  intricate  and  perilous  problem  of 
making  him  whole  and  strong  again. 

"  He  will  be  a  cripple?  "  Madge  queried. 

"  He  will  not  merely  walk  and  talk  and  be  a 
limping  caricature  of  his  former  self,"  Linday 
told  her.  "  He  shall  run  and  leap,  swim  riffles, 
ride  bears,  fight  panthers,  and  do  all  things  to 
the  top  of  his  fool  desire.  And,  I  warn  you, 
he  will  fascinate  women  just  as  of  old.  Will 
you  like  that?  Are  you  content?  Remember, 
you  will  not  be  with  him." 

"  Go  on,  go  on,"  she  breathed.  "  Make 
him  whole.  Make  him  what  he  was." 

More  than  once,  whenever  Strang's  recupera 
tion  permitted,  Linday  put  him  under  the 
anaesthetic  and  did  terrible  things,  cutting  and 
sewing,  rewiring  and  connecting  up  the  dis 
rupted  organism.  Later,  developed  a  hitch  in 
the  left  arm.  Strang  could  lift  it  so  far,  and 
no  farther.  Linday  applied  himself  to  the 
problem.  It  was  a  case  of  more  wires, 
shrunken,  twisted,  disconnected.  Again  it  was 
cut  and  switch  and  ease  and  disentangle.  And 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     257 

all  that  saved  Strang  was  his  tremendous  vitality 
and  the  health  of  his  flesh. 

"  You  will  kill  him,"  his  brother  complained. 
"  Let  him  be.  For  God's  sake  let  him  be. 
A  live  and  crippled  man  is  better  than  a  whole 
and  dead  one." 

Linday  flamed  in  wrath.  "You  get  out! 
Out  of  this  cabin  with  you  till  you  can  come 
back  and  say  that  I  make  him  live.  Pull  —  by 
God,  man,  you've  got  to  pull  with  me  with  all 
your  soul.  Your  brother's  travelling  a  hair 
line  razor-edge.  Do  you  understand?  A 
thought  can  topple  him  off.  Now  get  out,  and 
come  back  sweet  and  wholesome,  convinced  be 
yond  all  absoluteness  that  he  will  live  and  be 
what  he  was  before  you  and  he  played  the  fool 
together.  Get  out,  I  say." 

The  brother,  with  clenched  hands  and  threat 
ening  eyes,  looked  to  Madge  for  counsel. 

"  Go,  go,  please,"  she  begged.  "  He  is 
right.  I  know  he  is  right." 

Another  time,  when  Strang's  condition 
seemed  more  promising,  the  brother  said: 


258     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

"  Doc,  you're  a  wonder,  and  all  this  time  I've 
forgotten  to  ask  your  name." 

"  None  of  your  damn  business.  Don't 
bother  me.  Get  out." 

The  mangled  right  arm  ceased  from  its  heal 
ing,  burst  open  again  in  a  frightful  wound. 

"  Necrosis,"  said  Linday. 

"  That  does  settle  it,"  groaned  the  brother. 

"Shut  up!"  Linday  snarled.  "Get  out! 
Take  Daw  with  you.  Take  Bill,  too.  Get 
rabbits  —  alive  —  healthy  ones.  Trap  them. 
Trap  everywhere." 

"  How  many?  "  the  brother  asked. 

"  Forty  of  them  —  four  thousand  —  forty 
thousand  —  all  you  can  get.  You'll  help  me, 
Mrs.  Strang.  I'm  going  to  dig  into  that  arm 
and  size  up  the  damage.  Get  out,  you  fellows. 
You  for  the.  rabbits." 

And  he  dug  in,  swiftly,  unerringly,  scraping 
away  disintegrating  bone,  ascertaining  the  ex 
tent  of  the  active  decay. 

"  It  never  would  have  happened,"  he  told 
Madge,  "  if  he  hadn't  had  so  many  other  things 
needing  vitality  first.  Even  he  didn't  have 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     259 

vitality  enough  to  go  around.  I  was  watching 
it,  but  I  had  to  wait  and  chance  it.  That  piece 
must  go.  He  could  manage  without  it,  but 
rabbit-bone  will  make  it  what  it  was." 

From  the  hundreds  of  rabbits  brought  in,  he 
weeded  out,  rejected,  selected,  tested,  selected 
and  tested  again,  until  he  made  his  final  choice. 
He  used  the  last  of  his  chloroform  and  achieved 
the  bone-graft  —  living  bone  to  living  bone, 
living  man  and  living  rabbit  immovable  and  in- 
dissolubly  bandaged  and  bound  together,  their 
mutual  processes  uniting  and  reconstructing  a 
perfect  arm. 

And  through  the  whole  trying  period,  es 
pecially  as  Strang  mended,  occurred  passages 
of  talk  between  Linday  and  Madge.  Nor  was 
he  kind,  nor  she  rebellious. 

"  It's  a  nuisance,"  he  told  her.  "  But  the 
law  is  the  law,  and  you'll  need  a  divorce  before 
we  can  marry  again.  What  do  you  say? 
Shall  we  go  to  Lake  Geneva  ?  " 

"  As  you  will,"  she  said. 

And  he,  another  time:  "  What  the  deuce 
did  you  see  in  him  anyway?  I  know  he  had 


260    THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

money.  But  you  and  I  were  managing  to  get 
along  with  some  sort  of  comfort.  My  practice 
was  averaging  around  forty  thousand  a  year 
then  —  I  went  over  the  books  afterward. 
Palaces  and  steam  yachts  were  about  all  that 
was  denied  you." 

"  Perhaps  youVe  explained  it,"  she  an 
swered.  "  Perhaps  you  were  too  interested  in 
your  practice.  Maybe  you  forgot  me." 

"  Humph,"  he  sneered.  "  And  may  not 
your  Rex  be  too  interested  in  panthers  and  short 
sticks?" 

He  continually  girded  her  to  explain  what  he 
chose  to  call  her  infatuation  for  the  other  man. 

"  There  is  no  explanation,"  she  replied. 
And,  finally,  she  retorted,  "  No  one  can  explain 
love,  I  least  of  all.  I  only  knew  love,  the 
divine  and  irrefragable  fact,  that  is  all.  There 
was  once,  at  Fort  Vancouver,  a  baron  of  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company  who  chided  the  resident 
Church  of  England  parson.  The  dominie  had 
written  home  to  England  complaining  that  the 
Company  folk,  from  the  head  factor  down, 
were  addicted  to  Indian  wives.  *  Why  didn't 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY      261 

you  explain  the  extenuating  circumstances  ?  '  de 
manded  the  baron.  Replied  the  dominie :  l  A 
cow's  tail  grows  downward.  I  do  not  attempt 
to  explain  why  the  cow's  tail  grows  downward. 
I  merely  cite  the  fact.'  " 

"Damn  clever  women!"  cried  Linday,  his 
eyes  flashing  his  irritation. 

>l  What  brought  you,  of  all  places,  into  the 
Klondike?  "  she  asked  once. 

"  Too  much  money.  No  wife  to  spend  it. 
Wanted  a  rest.  Possibly  overwork.  I  tried 
Colorado,  but  their  telegrams  followed  me,  and 
some  of  them  did  themselves.  I  went  on  to 
Seattle.  Same  thing.  Ransom  ran  his  wife 
out  to  me  in  a  special  train.  There  was  no 
escaping  it.  Operation  successful.  Local  news 
papers  got  wind  of  it.  You  can  imagine  the 
rest.  I  had  to  hide,  so  I  ran  away  to  Klondike. 
And  —  well,  Tom  Daw  found  me  playing  whist 
in  a  cabin  down  on  the  Yukon." 

Came  the  day  when  Strang's  bed  was  carried 
out  of  doors  and  into  the  sunshine. 

"  Let  me  tell  him  now,"  she  said  to  Linday. 

"No;  wait,"  he  answered. 


262     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

Later,  Strang  was  able  to  sit  up  on  the  edge 
of  the  bed,  able  to  walk  his  first  giddy  steps, 
supported  on  either  side. 

"  Let  me  tell  him  now,"  she  said. 

"  No.  I'm  making  a  complete  job  of  this. 
I  want  no  set-backs.  There's  a  slight  hitch  still 
in  that  left  arm.  It's  a  little  thing,  but  I  am 
going  to  remake  him  as  God  made  him.  To 
morrow  I've  planned  to  get  into  that  arm  and 
take  out  the  kink.  It  will  mean  a  couple  of 
days  on  his  back.  I'm  sorry  there's  no  more 
chloroform.  He'll  just  have  to  bite  his  teeth 
on  a  spike  and  hang  on.  He  can  do  it.  He's 
got  grit  for  a  dozen  men." 

Summer  came  on.  The  snow  disappeared, 
save  on  the  far  peaks  of  the  Rockies  to  the  east. 
The  days  lengthened  till  there  was  no  darkness, 
the  sun  dipping  at  midnight,  due  north,  for  a 
few  minutes  beneath  the  horizon.  Linday 
never  let  up  on  Strang.  He  studied  his  walk, 
his  body  movements,  stripped  him  again  and 
again  and  for  the  thousandth  time  made  him 
flex  all  his  muscles.  Massage  was  given  him 
without  end,  until  Linday  declared  that  Tom 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     263 

Daw,  Bill,  and  the  brother  were  properly  quali 
fied  for  Turkish  bath  and  osteopathic  hospital 
attendants.  But  Linday  was  not  yet  satisfied. 
He  put  Strang  through  his  whole  repertoire  of 
physical  feats,  searching  him  the  while  for  hid 
den  weaknesses.  He  put  him  on  his  back  again 
for  a  week,  opened  up  his  leg,  played  a  deft 
trick  or  two  with  the  smaller  veins,  scraped  a 
spot  of  bone  no  larger  than  a  coffee  grain  till 
naught  but  a  surface  of  healthy  pink  remained 
to  be  sewed  over  with  the  living  flesh. 

"  Let  me  tell  him,"  Madge  begged. 

"  Not  yet,"  was  the  answer.  "  You  will  tell 
him  only  when  I  am  ready." 

July  passed,  and  August  neared  its  end,  when 
he  ordered  Strang  out  on  trail  to  get  a  moose. 
Linday  kept  at  his  heels,  watching  him,  studying 
him.  He  was  slender,  a  cat  in  the  strength  of 
his  muscles,  and  he  walked  as  Linday  had  seen 
no  man  walk,  effortlessly,  with  all  his  body, 
seeming  to  lift  the  legs  with  supple  muscles 
clear  to  the  shoulders.  But  it  was  without 
heaviness,  so  easy  that  it  invested  him  with  a 
peculiar  grace,  so  easy  that  to  the  eye  the  speed 


264     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

was  deceptive.  It  was  the  killing  pace  of  which 
Tom  Daw  had  complained.  Linday  toiled  be 
hind,  sweating  and  panting;  from  time  to  time, 
when  the  ground  favoured,  making  short  runs 
to  keep  up.  At  the  end  of  ten  miles  he  called  a 
halt  and  threw  himself  down  on  the  moss. 

"  Enough !  "  he  cried.  "  I  can't  keep  up 
with  you." 

He  mopped  his  heated  face,  and  Strang  sat 
down  on  a  spruce  log,  smiling  at  the  doctor, 
and,  with  the  camaraderie  of  a  pantheist,  at  all 
the  landscape. 

"  Any  twinges,  or  hurts,  or  aches,  or  hints  of 
aches?"  Linday  demanded. 

Strang  shook  his  curly  head  and  stretched  his 
lithe  body,  living  and  joying  in  every  fibre  of 
it. 

*  You'll  do,  Strang.  For  a  winter  or  two 
you  may  expect  to  feel  the  cold  and  damp  in 
the  old  wounds.  But  that  will  pass,  and  per 
haps  you  may  escape  it  altogether." 

"  God,  Doctor,  you  have  performed  miracles 
with  me.  I  don't  know  how  to  thank  you.  I 
don't  even  know  your  name." 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     265 

"  Which  doesn't  matter.  I've  pulled  you 
through,  and  that's  the  main  thing." 

"  But  it's  a  name  men  must  know  out  in  the 
world,"  Strang  persisted.  "  I'll  wager  I'd 
recognise  it  if  I  heard  it." 

"  I  think  you  would,"  was  Linday's  answer. 
"  But  it's  beside  the  matter.  I  want  one  final 
test,  and  then  I'm  done  with  you.  Over  the 
divide  at  the  head  of  this  creek  is  a  tributary 
of  the  Big  Windy.  Daw  tells  me  that  last  year 
you  went  over,  down  to  the  middle  fork,  and 
back  again,  in  three  days.  He  said  you  nearly 
killed  him,  too.  You  are  to  wait  here  and  camp 
to-night.  I'll  send  Daw  along  with  the  camp 
outfit.  Then  it's  up  to  you  to  go  to  the  middle 
fork  and  back  in  the  same  time  as  last  year." 


"1VT  OW,"  Linday  said  to  Madge.     "  You 

A.  i  have  an  hour  in  which  to  pack.  I'll 
go  and  get  the  canoe  ready.  Bill's  bringing  in 
the  moose  and  won't  get  back  till  dark.  We'll 
make  my  cabin  to-day,  and  in  a  week  we'll  be  in 
Dawson." 

u  I  was  in  hope  .  .  ."  She  broke  off 
proudly. 

"  That  I'd  forego  the  fee?" 

"  Oh,  a  compact  is  a  compact,  but  you  needn't 
have  been  so  hateful  in  the  collecting.  You 
have  not  been  fair.  You  have  sent  him  away 
for  three  days,  and  robbed  me  of  my  last  words 
to  him." 

"  Leave  a  letter." 

"  I  shall  tell  him  all." 

"  Anything  less  than  all  would  be  unfair  to 
the  three  of  us,"  was  Linday's  answer. 

When  he  returned  from  the  canoe,  her  outfit 
was  packed,  the  letter  written. 

266 


THE  END  OF  THE  STORY     267 

"  Let  me  read  it,"  he  said,  "  if  you  don't 
mind." 

Her  hesitation  was  momentary,  then  she 
passed  it  over. 

"  Pretty  straight,"  he  said,  when  he  had 
finished  it.  "  Now,  are  you  ready?  " 

He  carried  her  pack  down  to  the  bank,  and, 
kneeling,  steadied  the  canoe  with  one  hand 
while  he  extended  the  other  to  help  her  in.  He 
watched  her  closely,  but  without  a  tremor  she 
held  out  her  hand  to  his  and  prepared  to  step 
on  board. 

"  Wait,"  he  said.  "  One  moment.  You  re 
member  the  story  I  told  you  of  the  elixir.  I 
failed  to  tell  you  the  end.  And  when  she  had 
anointed  his  eyes  and  was  about  to  depart,  it 
chanced  she  saw  in  the  mirror  that  her  beauty 
had  been  restored  to  her.  And  he  opened  his 
eyes,  and  cried  out  with  joy  at  the  sight  of  her 
beauty,  and  folded  her  in  his  arms." 

She  waited,  tense  but  controlled,  for  him  to 
continue,  a  dawn  of  wonder  faintly  beginning 
to  show  in  her  face  and  eyes. 

"  You    are    very   beautiful,    Madge."     He 


268     THE  TURTLES  OF  TASMAN 

paused,  then  added  drily,  "  The  rest  is  obvious. 
I  fancy  Rex  Strang's  arms  won't  remain  long 
empty.  Good-bye." 

"  Grant  .  .  ."  she  said,  almost  whispered, 
and  in  her  voice  was  all  the  speech  that  needs 
not  words  for  understanding. 

He  gave  a  nasty  little  laugh.  "  I  just  wanted 
to  show  you  I  wasn't  such  a  bad  sort.  Coals 
of  fire,  you  know." 

"  Grant  .  .  ." 

He  stepped  into  the  canoe  and  put  out  a 
slender,  nervous  hand. 

"  Good-bye,"  he  said. 

She  folded  both  her  own  hands  about  his. 

"  Dear,  strong  hand,"  she  murmured,  and 
bent  and  kissed  it. 

He  jerked  it  away,  thrust  the  canoe  out  from 
the  bank,  dipped  the  paddle  in  the  swift  rush  of 
the  current,  and  entered  the  head  of  the  riffle 
where  the  water  poured  glassily  ere  it  burst 
into  a  white  madness  of  foam. 


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"  A  thrilling  story  of  adventure  .  .  .  stirring  indeed  .  .  .  and  it  touches 
a  chord  of  tenderness  that  is  all  too  rare  in  Mr.  London's  work." 

—  Record-Herald,  Chicago. 

BEFORE  ADAM. 

Decorated  cloth,  illustrated  in  colors,  $1.50 

"  The  marvel  of  it  is  not  in  the  story  itself,  but  in  the  audacity  of  the 
man  who  undertook  such  a  task  as  the  writing  of  it.  ...  From  an  artistic 
standpoint  the  book  is  an  undoubted  success.  And  it  is  no  less  a  success 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  reader  who  seeks  to  be  entertained." 

—  The  Plain  Dealer,  Cleveland. 

THE  IRON  HEEL. 

Decorated  cloth,  $1.50 

*'  Power  is  certainly  the  keynote  of  this  book.  Every  word  tingles  with 
it.  It  is  a  great  book,  one  that  deserves  to  be  read  and  pondered.  ...  It 
contains  a  mighty  lesson  and  a  most  impressive  warning." 

—  Indianapolis  News. 

REVOLUTION. 

Cloth,  I2mo,  $i.$o;  Standard  Library  Edition,  $0.50 

"  Here  is  a  field  wherein  London  is  entirely  at  home,  and  the  narrative  ra 
diates  with  picturesque  description  and  vivid  characterization." 

—  Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

THE  WAR  OF  THE  CLASSES. 

Cloth,  izmo,  $1.50;  Standard  Library  Edition,  $0.50 

"  Mr.  London's  book  is  thoroughly  interesting,  and  Mr.  London's  point  of 
view  is,  as  may  be  surmised,  very  different  from  that  of  the  closet  theorist." 

—  Springfiled  Republican. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers       64-66  Fifth  Avenue       New  York 


JACK  LONDON'S  WRITINGS 
PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS. 

Illustrated,  cloth,  $l.$o 

"  This  life  has  been  pictured  many  times  before  —  complacently  and  sooth 
ingly  by  Professor  Walter  A.  Wyckoff,  luridly  by  Mr.  Stead,  scientifically  by 
Mr.  Charles  Booth.  But  Mr.  London  alone  has  made  it  real  and  present 
to  us."  —  The  Independent. 

THE   ROAD.  Illustrated,  cloth,  izmo,  $2.00 

A  literal  record  of  life  among  tramps,  of  travel  from  end  to  end  of  the 
country. 

JACK  LONDON'S  SHORT  STORIES 
THE  GAME. 

Each,  cloth,  illustrated,  I2mo,  $1.50 
A  Transcript  from  Real  Life. 

"  It  is  told  with  such  a  glow  of  imaginative  illusion,  with  such  intense 
dramatic  vigor,  with  such  effective  audacity  of  phrase,  that  it  almost  seems 
as  if  the  author's  appeal  was  to  the  bodily  eye  as  much  as  to  the  inner  men 
tality,  and  that  the  events  are  actually  happening  before  the  reader." 

—  New  York  Herald. 

CHILDREN  OF  THE  FROST. 

"  Told  with  something  of  that  same  vigorous  and  honest  manliness  and  in 
difference  with  which  Mr.  Kipling  makes  unbegging  yet  direct  and  unfail 
ing  appeal  to  the  sympathy  of  his  reader."  — Richmond  Despatch. 

THE  FAITH  OF  MEN. 

"  Mr.  London's  art  as  a  story-teller  nowhere  manifests  more  strongly 
than  in  the  swift,  dramatic  close  of  his  stories.  There  is  no  hesitancy  or 
uncertainty  of  touch.  From  the  start  the  story  moves  straight  to  the  in 
evitable  conclusion."  —  Courier-Journal. 

MOON  FACE. 

"  Each  of  the  stories  is  unique  in  its  individual  way,  weird  and  uncanny, 
and  told  in  Mr.  London's  vigorous,  compelling  style."  —  Interior. 

TALES  OF  THE  FISH  PATROL. 

"  That  they  are  vividly  told,  hardly  need  be  said,  for  Jack  London  is  a 
realist  as  well  as  a  writer  of  thrilling  romances." 

—  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

LOVE  OF  LIFE. 

"  Jack  London  is  at  his  best  with  the  short  story  .  .  .  clear-cut,  sharp,  in 
cisive  with  the  tang  of  the  frost  in  it."  —  Record-Herald,  Chicago. 

LOST  FACE. 

The  stories  are  strong  and  robust  and  the  characterizations  are  not  fanci 
ful  creations,  but  the  actual  happenings  of  an  existence  which  the  author  has 
lived  and  now  vividly  describes. 

SOUTH  SEA  TALES. 

Illustrated,  decorated  cloth,  izmo,  $1.25 

Jack  London's  stories  of  the  South  Seas  have  a  sense  of  reality  about 
them  which  prove  that  he  has  been  on  the  ground  and  has  himself  taken  part 
in  the  combats,  physical  and  mental,  which  he  describes. 

PLAYS  BY  JACK  LONDON 

THEFT.  $1.25 

SCORN  OF  WOMEN.  $1.35 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers       64-66  Fifth  Avenue       New  York 


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